The shittier the news gets, the more I love baseball. I watched another great game in the Little League World Series last night: Chicago's Jackie Robinson West vs. Rhode Island's Cumberland Americans. Cumberland battled JRW's batting powerhouse until the final out, but couldn't pull out the winning run.

What was really amazing was the speech coach Dave Belisle gave to his boys after the loss:

After losing to Jackie Robinson West 8-7, Dave Belisle gathered his Cumberland American team from Rhode Island to let them know that even though they lost, it's not a reason to be upset or disappointed.

As most of the kids in the huddle cried, Belisle made them all lift their heads and look him in the eye as he told them to be proud because they had their hometown "jumpin', the whole state jumpin', you had New England jumpin', you had ESPN jumpin'." He also told them the only reason he would cry after this run is because he won't be coaching them.

Aww. ESPN was smart enough to leave the camera on for the entire speech, and all I could think about was all the damaged men I know whose dads weren't there for them. I know we still have such men, because they were all on Twitter during this speech, calling him "soft" and "an example of the pussification of sports."

But there were also guys on Twitter who said they played hockey for Coach Belisle's many state championship teams, and they responded by calling him "a coach I'd run through brick walls for."

If you coach sports (or if you're a parent), here's the whole speech. Memorize it, and when your kids fail, use it. You could do worse.