**“Abandon your humanity”?!! ** By walking a batter??? Oh cripes, what a steaming pile of…
Hint: It’s not about baseball.
Maybe you could expand on your statement above then and explain “the golden opportunity to teach their team that there are more important measures of victory than the final score.”
Is it that? “We should go out of our way to avoid embarrassing recovered Cancer patients”
Jim
I got the idea in this link.
Carry on.
At what age IS it appropriate to play competitively, if 9/10 is too young?
It’s time again for SPOOJE’S STUPID QUESTION OF THE DAY!!!
What if the slugger had not been intentionally walked. What if he had been unintentionally walked, beaned, reached on an error, reached on an infiled single…all possible outcomes.
What happens then? Is it now OK to stike the cancer patient out? If so, why is it now different? If not, why are these kids playing baseball?
I understand that it is bad form to pull this as a spectacle. To gather together and decide in front of everyone that we will walk this kid to get to the weaker kid because they really don’t do that at this level. But I will bet you dollars to donuts that if this kid really was a feared slugger he has been ‘unintenionally’ intenionally walked before. (for those unfamilliar with baseball, this is where the pitcher is instructed to pitch to the kid but not to throw anything he can hit. generally it’s 4 pitches well outside the strike zone and see if will chase them and get himself out in frustration). This is good strategy and allows everyone to save face. (they do this in all levels of the game)
Nobody has said that it isn’t okay to play competitively. As has already been said a couple of times, if you are looking for your child to have a full-out competitive experience, get them in the travel league. If you put your child in the recreational league, understand that their opportunity to take it to their opponents will have limitations put on it.
The problem here is the use of a practice never used previously in that league and, as new reports come in here, never used by those anywhere with actual experience with youth baseball.
Who knows what the nature of the Yankees team was. Perhaps their success was largely due to a standout player routinely hitting homers. Maybe they don’t make it to the championship game if the other teams regularly intentionally walk him. But the practice is not to use that strategy. Is it fair for them to turn around and do so to another team simply to win the last game? Is it honorable? Would you do it?
I would not do it, but given that it’s only a recreational league, I wouldn’t decide afterwards that it’s actually the greatest outrage in the history of the sport and run to the media with the unspeakable story of how the other team won, and demand the other coach’s head on a platter, and pretend that a kid who beat fucking CANCER can’t handle a little K on his scorecard.
I don’t think 9/10 is too young, but it depends on the league. If it is a competitive league, or an everyone plays for fun league. This one obviously was the play for fun variety.
Sorry I missed that. I was confused because these were kids on a baseball diamond, playing baseball, following baseball rules, dressed in baseball uniforms, with baseball coaches, trying to win a baseball game.
Nazis surrendered their humanity. KGB executioners surrendered their humanity. Karl Rove surrendered his humanity. Surrendering one’s claim on humanity seems to me a pretty BIG FUCKING THING, and this is SO FAR BELOW that it’s just silly to compare it,
But I agree it’s not entirely about baseball. Note my earlier post about important life lessons kids learn through sports.
- Playing by the rules is an important life lesson for kids to learn.
- Losing is an important life lesson for kids to learn.
- Strategic thinking is an important life lesson for kids to learn. Maybe these kids are a little young for complex strategies, but walking a good batter to get to a bad one is hardly rocket science.
I’m sorry that these coaches didn’t meet your standards as spiritual guides or pyschologists. They are BASEBALL COACHES for chrissake. If they teach those three thngs above, and no dout a few other things about about grace and poise in victory and defeat that I’ve failed to mention, they’re doing their job.
This small child understood perfectly what it was about, and had no problem at all with how things played out.
You’ve read the article so you know the facts. If you don’t “get” why people are up in arms, including a guy who writes about sports for a living, then I can’t help. Maybe you should go see Oz and we’ll resume the conversation after you’ve gotten a heart.
This thread has brought back memories for me as a kid playing baseball which have up till now been forgotten.
I did not qualify to be on a baseball team because I was not a member of the Anglican, Presbyterian, United or Catholic church, the four mainstream churches resulting from the predominant United Empire Loyalist establishment in the town of Niagara on the Lake, Ontario during the 50s.
I was seven years old when I was first invited to play by seven year olds on a makeshift diamond at an open school ground that in effect, was assumed by all the kids to be reserved for grade 2 kids. No teachers, no parents and no coaches. I had no glove,never mind a bat, left handed and somewhat handicapped with no television to watch the professional games and learning English as a second language. Let me tell you that 7 year olds are just as competitive as adults. Let me tell you that seven year olds know how to share their gloves with a kid who didn’t have one while at the same time wouldn’t spare a moment to avoid beating the crap out of you with a high score.
My worst memories regarding the baseball of my youth was when we picked teams. I was always picked near the last by my peers. . Alas, my mother wasn’t around to take over and pick the teams to spare me the embarrassment. :rolleyes:
We read the same article. The kid is a great kid with a great attitude. None of the adults come off great, but from what I read, I will not condemn the coach for looking out for his team. Once I saw “title game” and “rules relaxed”, I thought the answer was obvious. You read the same article and came to a different conclusion, but are more than willing to label myself and others as heartless for putting the integrity of the game over the concerns of one mother.
*
I turn this on you in jest. *
You must hate baseball, and if you hate baseball it means you must hate America.
Why do you hate America?
Jim {Did I mention the kid appears to be a great kid with a great attitude}
I posted only after the third pointedly “gendered” comment that put female references in an unfavorable light. If you will notice, I didn’t mind taking “ownership” of the word. That was my reaction to the word itself. It’s just sad to see it treated as the nastiest thing you can think of. That was your reaction. Of course, that is your perfect right. It just seemed out of character for you.
I thought that I remembered that you are a psychologist. I will save “shrink” for psychiatrists. But most psychologists that I know are more atuned to the power of the demeaning use of words that are associated with only one gender. I know that you would be if it were only one race.
You and I just disagree about what is best for the youngster. I’m sure we have his welfare at heart and that is what is most important – not some officious rules. I think treating him as an equal – a regular teammate – is best.
Can you understand that it is also about honor, integrity and fair play from our point of view? That is best for the cancer patient and for all of the other kids involved.
BTW, I think that it’s perfectly honorable to hit to the weakest player. On co-ed teams, girls and women are well aware that our throwing arms are not usually as strong. We are not fools.
Condescension is an insult. It is not honorable. It has nothing to do with fair play.
When I was 9 years old, I wasn’t good enough to play on the county-league team. Instead, I played in a league like this one - 6 balls for a walk, 4 outfielders, everybody in the batting order, etc. Regardless of how competitve the league rules were, you can bet your ass I wanted to win. Everybody else on my team wanted to win too.
It’s important for the kids to learn to play within the rules. It’s important to the kids to win the game if they can. The coach found a way to do both.
It was a situation in which the non-competitive rules were specifically relaxed and the game was intended to determine a league champion. The league was specifically encouraging this kind of action for this game. I think the coach was perfectly right to do what he did.
It won the game in a manner consistent with the written rules of the game. How am I being disingenuous? As for not using similar strategy during the regular season (assuming it was permitted within the written rules of the game, which isn’t the case here), I’d like to point out that coaching also includes challenging your players, which means getting your pitchers to face the heavy hitters and try to outwit them. By the final game, it’s a safe bet that any lessons have already been learned - this game isn’t about training for the final, it is the final.
I just can’t think of a racial term that has another meaning as commonly used. You seem to need to take the word “cunt” in this context literally. Would it be okay for me to call him a prick, or would I be a self-loathing hater of men? If I called him an asshole, would I mean that he was literally an anal orifice, or that he was behaving in a manner that has come to be referred to by the term “asshole”? It’s very much like the cocksucker argument that Excalibre wanted to get into.
When I am working as a psychologist, it is very much my job to understand the meaning of the words being used by the person I am working with, as they intend them. If I went along applying a literalist perspective to everything they said, I would be fucked. And I don’t mean that someone would have intercourse with me.
And I am telling you that it is unfair to him AND to his teammates for the other team to employ a tactic that is not used by any other little league team there or anywhere else in order to win the game. Allowing that tactic to be used will require coaches to consider whether it is fair to the team to accept players on the team who cannot hit well, and will make them think more strategically about where and how to play them when they do. The Yankees coach dishonored the accepted practice of all such teams and the intent of such leagues, as well as himself and his team’s efforts to that point.
I think Romney’s coach sounds pretty cool. Apparently he had Romney batting in a non-strategically advantageous position and playing in center field. Clearly he understands the purpose and intent of the league.
Perhaps you do not understand. Typically, a right handed batter will hit the ball to left field. That will be his or her strength. This is why weaker players are placed in right field. When I suggest that one should not hit the ball to right because a girl is playing there, I mean that one should not intentionally hit away from where one would normally do so (and where their better players would be) in order to take advantage of the circumstances. If the other team has good female outfielders, they’ll put them in left. I’ve got no problem hitting to the other team’s strengths.
But in a co-ed league, which is usually just for fun, it is no fun to be taken advantage of, and no fun to take advantage of others. the person being targeted feels exposed and knows that they are a liability. The rest of the team is fairly helpless, unless you shift players around. I wouldn’t want to win that way, and it is ungentlemanly to do. Is it okay to not want to be ungentlemanly? Is that more palatable than unmanly?
To be clear, if it is a co-ed league which is designed for pure competition, if such exists anywhere, then I have no problem with anyone hitting anywhere they need to.
In pick-up games (this means games that are not part of a league and are more spontaneous in nature) where you have fewer than enough players to cover the outfield, so you play one person in left and one person in center, intentionally go to right field. Such guys are exceptionally low in my book as well.
It’s just a matter of what the intent and spirit of the league is supposed to be. Just like with 9 and 10 year old little league.
(bolding yours)
Well you’re clearly wrong on this point. Intentional walks, while not common by any means were definitely employed in both the little league I played in as well as most I have seen and/or been involved with since. To say they aren’t used by any team there or anywhere else is blatantly false.
The line above should read “In pick-up games (this means games that are not part of a league and are more spontaneous in nature) where you have fewer than enough players to cover the outfield, so you play one person in left and one person in center, I’ve seen guys who intentionally go to right field.”
Every other person in this thread involved in little league in any way has stated that they have never seen intentional walks used. You are an anomaly and given your posting style, I would not be surprised if you weren’t simply fabricating your report. If not, however, you seem to have had an atypical experience. Maybe your coach was an asshole too.