WASHINGTON — From the toniest quarter of the nation’s capital comes an insane but not shocking story of Little League Baseball, high-powered attorneys, accusations of cheating, and apparent stacking of teams.

Northwest Little League, whose territory includes the famed Georgetown neighborhood, was found to have poached players from neighboring localities. The coach who did the poaching was not only stacking his own team within NWLL, critics charged, but he was also trying to stack NWLL’s team in the tournament that could lead to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

A lengthy Wall Street Journal story reports that NWLL parents “alleged the coach poached an elite player from a nearby league but ranked the boy’s abilities as average ahead of the spring 2022 draft, so he could choose him in the fourth round and avoid using his first pick. [Coach Ricky] Davenport-Thomas was also accused of paying himself and his friends with league funds to coach teams, even though the league was mostly volunteer-run.”

It’s a wild story that’s very much a D.C. story. But it’s also a typical story about American youth sports culture, which has gone off the rails.

We put children in sports because sports build athleticism, provide an opportunity for striving, inculcate teamwork and obedience, and teach children about failure and about winning graciously — but also because childhood should be fun.

As long as there have been sports, there have been overcompetitive men who can ruin the game. But today’s culture seems to get this whole thing wrong in all sorts of ways.

“Youth sports in America are increasingly not about building virtues, but about the sports themselves,” I wrote after a pee-wee football coach shot an opposing coach.

Local recreational leagues coached by volunteer dads are giving way to intensive and expensive travel leagues. Even parents who want to opt out of these travel leagues feel pulled into them.

Junior varsity coaches tell parents that their boys had better play year-round if they want to try out. Would-be rec-league parents find the local leagues drained of coaches and talent.

Baseball writer John W. Miller put it this way:

“Without strike-throwers or fielders to back them up, baseball is absurdist slow-motion theater starring one pitcher hurling pebbles to the backstop. The rise of privatized sports has drawn the best pitchers away from volunteer-based leagues, raising the likelihood that a local recreational team lacks the skills needed for a decent game, driving average players to find other sports or to quit. Or, if they can afford it, to seek out private clubs.”

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And along the way, the game, which is supposed to build virtues and be fun, becomes a job, which is for the sake of advancement, achievement, or some other purpose.

It’s truly a sad fact about our culture that children can’t have games anymore.