[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
Absurd. It’s not bullying, it’s distracting the other player.
[/QUOTE]
Repeat after me: “Reading comprehension is my friend.”
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
I’m really not bothered by this rule; I don’t see negative chatter as a necessary part of the game. It’s rather unfortunate that such a rule was needed, though. I recall my little-league coach chiding me and a teammate for getting carried away with the taunts. The situation was handled by having an adult there with some common sense, something which too often seems to be lacking these days.
[/QUOTE]
The thing is, generic, “Pitcher’s got a rubber arm!” stuff is part of typical stand shenanigans, while you’re waiting to play. Real, genuine, serious insults would get you turfed by your own coach or the ump. “Davie is a bastard! Tom’s mom sleeps around and everybody knoooooooows it!” is totally beyond the pale, and deliberately meanspirited, and should get you tossed out of the game.
But general rabble to make a fuss to see if you can distract the other players is silly dumbass stuff that’s fun when you’re waiting on the bench. If you can’t cope with general, eeeeeevil chatter designed to exasperate you as a player, how the hell are you going to function as an adult when you have to get your shit together and still perform at your job, when a childish slight is enough to make you want to pick up you toys and go home?
You’re not always going to hear positive feedback, 100% of the time. You have to get used to both cheers and jeers. That’s life.
[QUOTE=tdn]
Repeat after me: “Reading comprehension is my friend.”
[/QUOTE]
Yeah? Sorry, I can comprehend just fine. I just don’t buy what you’re saying.
[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
Yeah? Sorry, I can comprehend just fine. I just don’t buy what you’re saying.
[/QUOTE]
How do you even know what I’m saying? It’s obvious that you’ve barely read anything in this thread.
[QUOTE=tdn]
How do you even know what I’m saying? It’s obvious that you’ve barely read anything in this thread.
[/QUOTE]
Yup, strike that. there is a second page I didn’t see. (My browser is hanging up on the boards a [del]bit[/del] a whole freakin’ LOT today). My apologies.
It doesn’t look like our opinions are that far off. Personal taunts have no business in the game.
Graciously accepted.
I hate when I miss page two. 
[QUOTE=mhendo]
Kids often pull the wings off flies or smoke cigarettes when adults aren’t around, too.
[/QUOTE]
But they’re not pulling the batter’s arms off or introducing carcinogens and stimulants to his alveoli. They’re chattering. That’s baseball.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
We don’t teach kids to play golf by yelling “Noonan! Miss it! Mmmmmiss!”
[/QUOTE]
I think you’re right, if I understand your post correctly. Kids who can’t hit with chatter going on should take up golf.
[QUOTE=Madd Maxx]
I was trying to illustrate in a Lion King, Circle of Life kinda way that kids will naturally pick on the lame or weak kids just as lions will single out the lame or weak zebra from a herd.
[/QUOTE]
Do you think that’s fucking funny?
[QUOTE=saoirse]
I think you’re right, if I understand your post correctly. Kids who can’t hit with chatter going on should take up golf.
[/QUOTE]
It is a good life lesson to learn that sometimes you need to be able to focus and get the job done, even if you’re on the receiving end of a lot of negative opinion. Sometimes you’ve got to do your job no matter how unpopular it makes you. Sometimes you’ve got to do good in the face of a jeering crowd of opposition. (Think of a judge who has to make the unpopular but legally sound decision knowing he/she has to then face the jeering, egg-throwing crowd).
One of my baseball team mates was a star hockey player, whose team lost whenever he was taken out of the game. It was way too easy to get him so riled up, he’d thoroughly lose it, go apeshit, and get thrown into the penalty box for the rest of the game. If the guy had just learned to deal with it and tune it out – to get the job done – he would’ve gotten that scholarship instead of the most penalty points for being an asshat. (Although a lot of the stuff that got him turfed from the game should never, ever been tolerated from the ref, but half the time it was coming from the parents :mad: )
I was bullied mercilessly at school. My sister, only 18 months older than me, (yes, “my poor mother!”) is a lesbian and was very obviously so, pretty much from the point that she burst out of the womb. So it came to fisticuffs many a time in the schoolyard, defending my sister’s honor and my own.
Generally, kids know the difference between, fervent jeering from the opposing team, and “Cellphone is quee-ee-ee-eer!”
The former makes you want to show them up: Prove you can hit the ball even if they’re yelling that you have Cookie Monster eyes and can’t keep your eye on the ball. The latter, while an effective distraction, is cruel shit that is scum-of-the-earth poor sportsmanship and should get you ejected from the game.
If a little kid felt he needed to whack another kid one the head with cleats, there was some seriously ugly shit going on that the adults should have stopped before it escalated.
[QUOTE=Zebra]
Do you think that’s fucking funny?
[/QUOTE]
I do. Now.
Hey, who here thinks the older siblings of the little leaguers are going to teach them creative ways to circumvent the new rule?
“You’re a master batter!.. You’re a master batter!..”
[QUOTE=saoirse]
I think you’re right, if I understand your post correctly. Kids who can’t hit with chatter going on should take up golf.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I applaud your ability to be more forthright than most and just endorse the heart of the matter. No pussyfooting around for you that this will help to teach the child a new skill or improve their ability to cope. No, this is about separating the wheat from the chaff - testing the mettle of the kids and seeing who isn’t up to snuff.
See, some people look at Little League as a fun sort of rec league kind of thing, where the idea is to give all kids a chance to participate in a team sport without the understanding that they are going to have some kind of future in that sport.
Others look at it as the preliminary point of the development of a career, with kids who can’t play getting segregated out, getting less or no playing time, and other kids getting the chance to hone their skills, learn how to hit in the face of distraction, learning the sweet taste of victory and the bitter sting of defeat. It’s a crucible, essentially, and kids who deserve a shot get their shot. The other kids can fuck off, because that’s the way life is.
Unfortunately for parents and non-parents who think in the latter terms, the economics of the matter suggest that you need a good number of kids to support a league, or you need to demand larger amounts of money from smaller amounts of parents. Thus, you have a lot of kids who just have no business being out on the field for the sake of the fun of the game, and parents who think the whole thing is just a community rec league which provides their kid with the chance to have a little fun and make some friends. These parents are generally the pussies who don’t understand or appreciate the “knock some dicks in the dirt” attitude that is really just a part of healthy competition.
We went all through this with the story about the coach who had his pitcher pitch around the best hitter on the other team in order to strike out the little cripple kid batting behind him. Hey, that was baseball and a good reflection of life as well.
I’m sure I linked to this, before, but here’s a great motivational poster for you.
[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
“You’re a master batter!.. You’re a master batter!..”
[/QUOTE]
Meh, couldn’t even get to first base.
[QUOTE=tdn]
Meh, couldn’t even get to first base.
[/QUOTE]
That’s why… I’m a master batter! I’m a master batter!
[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
But general rabble to make a fuss to see if you can distract the other players is silly dumbass stuff that’s fun when you’re waiting on the bench. If you can’t cope with general, eeeeeevil chatter designed to exasperate you as a player, how the hell are you going to function as an adult when you have to get your shit together and still perform at your job, when a childish slight is enough to make you want to pick up you toys and go home?
[/quote]
Yeah, I can see it now: “Gosh, because I was not taunted at bat in little league, I am now completely incapable of functioning in the presence of any kind of distraction. The water cooler just burped, and the sound has me so frazzled that I won’t be able to do my job for the rest of the day. I rue the day my little league decided to stop teaching kids how to harass each other.”
I disagree with the notion that the purpose of little league is to teach kids to “get used to jeers”. YMMV.
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
I disagree with the notion that the purpose of little league is to teach kids to “get used to jeers”. YMMV.
[/QUOTE]
I disagree with the notion that children can’t deal with jeers, and must be protected from any taunting.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Well, I applaud your ability to be more forthright than most and just endorse the heart of the matter. No pussyfooting around for you that this will help to teach the child a new skill or improve their ability to cope.
[/QUOTE]
As I said, above, Little League is about kids playing baseball. Any life lessons are incidental. This is how kids play baseball, and how they did so before Little League came along.
And some people are looking at it as playiong baseball, which is neither rec-league nor training ofr the pros. Kids enjoy knowing who won, and how they did compared to the other kids.
I’m not in favor of knocking anybody’s anything in the dirt. I’m in favor of letting the kids play the damn game, the way they’ve played it for over a century. If there are problems with the kids, eject them. If the parents cause problems, ban spectators from the games.
[QUOTE=saoirse]
Except that chatter is part of baseball. It predates Little League and is older than you or me or anyone on this board. It is what kids do when they play without adults.
[/QUOTE]
They didn’t ban chatter; they banned heckling.
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
They didn’t ban chatter; they banned heckling.
[/QUOTE]
They banned it all:
[QUOTE=cite in OP]
Knothole follows the Rules of Major League Baseball. Rule 4.06(a)(2) states, “No manager, player, substitute, coach, trainer or batboy shall at any time, whether from the bench, the coach’s box or on the playing field or elsewhere, use language which will in any manner refer to or reflect upon opposing players, an umpire, or any spectator.”
[/QUOTE]
“Hey batter batter” refers to a player on the opposing team, so it is banned.
[QUOTE=saoirse]
As I said, above, Little League is about kids playing baseball. Any life lessons are incidental. This is how kids play baseball, and how they did so before Little League came along.
[/quote]
How do you know how it was played before little league? How old are you? Further, if we are accepting of behaviors based on the principle that that is simply what kids do when they are playing on their own, why disallow taunts like “you suck”? Kids do that too.
Actually, no. These are rules for a league. They don’t apply to pick up games. You must realize that there are no police that will come around to pick up games. Therefore, this is actually a league. If its a travel league or some other selective and competitive league, I say go for it - compete how you will because that is the nature of that league. If it’s a rec league in which anyone who wants to play is allowed into the league, you better be ready to deal with pussies who are focused on things other than competing to win.
I just have no time for people who aren’t participating in a travel league or similarly competitive league who nevertheless think that their kid’s success at besting the other meat in the league is first and foremost. Get them in the right fucking league or accept that you might not get to taste blood this time around.