When I was a kid playing softball, I was a third rate hitter. Every time I was at bat, the poem “Casey at the bat” settled my nerves.
http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_4154850
A hearty fuck you to anyone who thinks that they taught a child fighting cancer anything about how to deal with adversity by intentionally walking the best hitter so that they could pitch to him.
I do think the most likely lesson is Master Wang-Ka’s item number 2. But then again, I think we have innumerable opportunities to learn that adults, people in general, and SDMB posters can be real pricks. We don’t need to make more.
Hell, I’m not surprised that adults would behave this way. I had a neighbor tell me straight out that she would rather her son attend a bad high school in an outlying community so that he would have a better chance to start on the sports teams there than go to a larger, far superior school where he wouldn’t likely start. Some people are fucked up.
And no man here has answered whether, when playing co-ed rec softball they would intentionally hit it to right because there was a girl playing there. It’s not against the rules. At least, the ones that are written down.
I suppose this may sound bad but a part of me finds the idea of not caring about the outcome of the game foreign. Be this a product of wanting to win as a child or my current interest in baseball I’m not sure. I’m a million miles from the belief that people should do anything to win at any level of a sport and find stories such as the one discussed previously both disgusting and sad. It’s just that what ick factor that I get from this occurance is nowhere near that level. (Not to imply that you’re comparing the two stories yourself.)
Guilty as charged. However the defensive part of me feels the need to state that I don’t view the idea as some sort of overly competetive “We’re raising our kids to be wimps” kind of thing. Additionally, I wouldn’t really use the phrase “need for competition” in my own case. I just know that I preferred winning as a child and certainly prefer seeing the Mariners win their games to this day. Surely I had fun while playing in games that my team lost but I can’t think of a single instance where I wouldn’t have enjoyed things more had we won.
Assuming the mother’s quote regarding the basketball team to be true I have to partially agree here. However, it’s all but impossible to say that the winning team wouldn’t have walked the star hitter regardless of who was up next. The tactic would still come off as lame but the result very well could have been the same.
I’ve seen “Rudy” too many times. I’m a sucker for the underdog coming through.
Kick ass. I do mean that.
The rules were not in question here, it was strategy. And if this was a camp for perspective coaches, I’d say you were right. But these kids are going to be coached for many, many more years. They will be told who to pitch to and who not to. And if all you’re convcerned about are the rules, why not tell the pitcher to give the slugger “a little chin music”*. If he gets hit, so what. He gets the base and will be a little more frightened the next time he faces the pitcher.
*Hat tip to Cosmo Kramer.
Look this entire thread is about our opinions of an event that really does not affect any of us. I would never equate an Intentional walk to chancing “a little chin music”. One is sound baseball and safe for everyone. The other is a dangerous pitch even for professionals, never mind kids. I would be with **Hentor ** and other and be very angry if a coach instructed a kid to give the slugger “a little chin music”. I suspect you were exaggerating on purpose, but I think it is a faulty comparison even for exaggeration.
Jim
In actuality, I am as competitive as they come. That’s probably why I respond so angrily to this kind of story, and why I did to other coaches sending the little kids for extra bases when there was an unwritten rule about it. If you have a league set up for fun, it’s fairly easy to fudge a bit here and there to get a competitive advantage, because other folks are playing with a different mindset. I’m exceptionally competitive, but I also have a strong sense of honor, and would not at all feel happy winning a game by fudging a bit.
In fact, feeling as competitive as I do, and seeing it in others, I’m fairly confident that children don’t need to be taught to compete; it comes fairly naturally. However, in observing others, I would like to see more people given a strong sense of honor.
The thing is, these teams are almost never put together by drafts, and children, AFAIK, are almost never excluded due to skill level. That means that there will always be some kids who are batting in front of other kids who will never ever hit a lick - usually more than one on any given team.
If there’s no rule about intentional walks, would you have no problem with coaches always pitching around any child batting in front of a really weak batter. Why not? If it’s okay once, it should be okay always, right Garfield226. I mean, you’d be in favor of the best hitters on 9 and 10 year old teams never getting to swing the bat, right?
Yeah, I’m sorry here folks, but I’m on the side of the opposing coach. Romney was a poor hitter, end of story. Whether or not he had cancer is completely irrelevant. He wants to be treated as a normal kid. Every single one of those kids was playing to win, probably wanted to win as badly as a nine or ten year old kid can want anything. Yes, it’s humiliating to have the hitter before you intentionally walked, because it’s just stated to the world that you’re a bad hitter. That’s nothing to do with cancer, folks, that’s just being a bad hitter. Maybe he’d be a better hitter if he hadn’t been sick; maybe he wouldn’t. But one thing I can guarantee. If he ever thought that the opposing coach didn’t play his best because he felt sorry for him, that would be far more humiliating.
The only way I’d think the coach was wrong was if intentional walking was not used normally as a strategy in this league when there’s a kid on base, a good hitter up, and a bad hitter on deck, especially when the game is tied and the innings are late. In other words, if the opposing coach singled out Romney for this treatment, not having used it before, *that * would be reprehensible. But I don’t get that impression. However, the article simply didn’t say, so I don’t know. But these aren’t toddlers. A nine or ten year old baseball fan is certainly old enough to know this strategy is frequently used in the major leagues, so I’d be surprised if it weren’t used in this league as well.
BTW, I’ve never seen a major league game in which a good hitter was intentionally walked where the walk wasn’t heartily booed by fans of the hitting team. It’s the parents who made Romney’s cancer the issue here.
His parents are the biggest problem here. This kid wants to live like a normal kid, and they’re hell bent on making sure he’s treated ‘specially’ in every situation. So instead of only his local Pony league supporters knowing he was intentionally pitched to and struck out (and most of them forgetting about it in a week or so), now the entire country knows. Gee, thanks, Mom and Dad. It’s understandable on their part - if I came that close to losing a kid, I might be doing the same thing. I’d probably be terrified to let the kid out of my sight! But if they’re going to try to let the kid live a normal life, they have to let the kid try to live a normal life. That means having to let go, which I recognize has got to be really, really hard.
The kid’s reaction here shows that he, at least, is taking this all in stride and in the best possible way. Good for him!
Jiminy Crickets, Oy!, I found another article, pasted a link, quoted from it, and I even bolded it for everyone:
Perhaps that is what the problem here is. Maybe everyone is speaking from ignorance, and applying major league standards to 9 and 10 year olds. But I’ve said it, the article says it, Lissa said it, Ivan-Osokin said it - intentional walks are not a commonly employed practice at that level.
No, their not toddlers, but hell, they aren’t even adolescents yet. They’re still children for chrissakes.
Hentor,
I’m sorry. I missed that, being an idiot. As I said, in that case, it was reprehensible. But *not * because the kid had cancer. And I’m sure that, whether or not he remembered/knew the Romney had had cancer or not, that wasn’t the factor prompting the decision. The factor was that Romney was a known weaker hitter for whatever reason.
I’m rather surprised they don’t use it. Kids of that age know whether or not they’re good athletes/hitters/pitchers/etc. Shielding them from it does absolutely nothing for them except to convince them that adults are well-meaning idiots.
Just because intentional walks are uncommon does not mean they are A) against the rules or B) inappropriate.
I’ll bet you nobody in the league turned a triple play all season. If that team had (and guess who batted into it…poor ol’ Romney), who would still be bawling for the poor kids’ fewwings? “But, but, it’s common practice to get ONE out on a play!” you would say. And that would sound just as idiotic as this.
Do us all a favor and lose the stupidity about a coach playing the kids in the order they were given on some list at the beginning of the year. It’s ridiculous. If we get to make up details to bolster our side let me join in too.
Hey, we all have unanswered questions here:
It seems like you never answer my questions. Like I asked, do you have any problem with the best player never getting to bat because the rest of the team is nowhere near as good as he is? If it’s okay once, it’s okay all the time, right?
Now you’re just being a cunt. I’ve got no problem with a team playing its best and making plays. I do have a problem with a non-drafted team of varying talent having the other team selectively play against the lesser players of the other team. There’s no honor in it.
Presume for a moment that the league is set up for fun, okay? That the goal is to try to get everyone a chance to play a little baseball as a child. All children, regardless of skill level, are pretty much accepted. Should the league turn down the kid with the shunt in his brain because they know that he’ll be a liability to whichever team he gets assigned to? Once he is placed on a team, should the other teams in the league take advantage by always pitching around whoever is in front of him.
Like I’ve said, it’s been the typical practice of most of the coaches of the little league teams around here. What has your experience with little league been over the last 10 years?
But you’re such a baseball genius, right? Explain to me then the competitive reasoning of playing a very poor hitter right after your best? If you structured a lineup purely for competitive purposes, wouldn’t you have the kid whose swing always looks like a drag bunt at the bottom of the lineup? Are you, genius, telling me that the coach had his best hitter batting 8th, essentially? No? Then you must be saying that he had his worst hitter batting 5th? Lay it out for me, genius.
I’ve got your answers, based on all the little league games I’ve participated in over the recent years: 1. Doing so would make you look like an overcompetitive pussy. 2. By 9 and 10, rules such as tagging up are commonly enforced. Dads playing base coach will scream and yell “Get back!”, yet kids will still forget at a rate of about 1 time per game. 3. No, you’re just being a cunt again.
Garfield,
I can’t imagine kids ever doing #3. Double plays go 3rd (or short) to 2nd to 1st. That’s how it works. I mean that’s the way God intended a double-play to be, isn’t it?
What’s that damn verse or expression that’s lurking around the edges of what passes for my mind? “Tinker to someone to someone else.” I thought that was the immutable law of the universe in the case of a grounder to the infield. (Pop-fly of course is a different matter)
On the other hand, Hentor, you’re telling me a team *wouldn’t * move up for an expected infield or low-speed grounder? Really? That surprises me!
Also, could you *please * not use the c-word to mean that someone is being a real shit? I know you don’t mean it as anti-woman, but when you’re talking to someone who is almost certainly a guy, and the nastiest insult you can pull out is to call him what amounts to a woman, it’s sort of hard to forget that. I don’t mean that just for you, btw, it’s something I’ve felt for a long time. It’s like calling someone a whore when what you mean is that they’ve acted like a nasty or rotten person. What connection is there? Call 'em a shit head or something, please?
Thanks for the personal insults, nacho-boy.
I never said “if it’s ok once, it’s ok all the time,” and no, that isn’t right. Barry Bonds gets pitched to on occasion, right? It’s clear you know nothing about baseball, except that you think you know “what’s best for the kids.”
I’m not going to “pretend the league is set up for fun” for a moment, because that’s not the scenario here. We could pretend the batter’s Stephen Hawking and the pitcher’s Roger Clemens and it wouldn’t make any difference, because that isn’t what happened. It clearly didn’t happen that the other teams always pitched around the slugger. He got to play. When the rules limiting competition were relaxed, because this game was precisely FOR competition (being a tournament and all…), he did. Once.
As I said, I have never heard of a little league team setting up their rosters in a random fashion at the beginning of the season and leaving them that way. A coach can set up a roster ORDER and then rotate it so different players bat first, but the coach is still setting up the order using some modicum of common sense (if he’s competent, that is). As I said earlier, I can think of no other reason for that coach to put Romney behind the slugger other than “HA HA Now if they walk him they’ll look like dicks!” And it seems to have worked. Thanks for making my point for me.
Regarding the answer to my questions, you’re saying moving the infield in on a likely bunt makes you look like an overcompetitive pussy, and realizing you can’t get a fast kid out going from second to first but you can still make a force play at first makes you a cunt? I think this is all we really need to know about your baseball pedigree.
Hurry up with those snowcones – it’s hot out here on the field.
Tinker to Evers to Chance! Oh thank heavens for the internet, that was going to drive me crazy for however long it took someone to answer!
Yes they generally do. What I meant was that the team realizes they have no chance to get the fast guy moving to second, so they decide to throw to first to get the sure, slow out. Hentor seems to think that’s somehow morally reprehensible, and you’re required to try to get the leading runner.
From someone who is obviously so disconnected from reality, I don’t take it so much as an insult to me as an indicator of his visciousness and ignorance.
Btw, here’s the reference if anyone else is interested: Baseballs Sad Lexicon (aka Tinker to Evans to Chance)
Oops! Simul-post!
Well, now that you make me think of it, I’d think kids of that age would rarely try for the double-play at all. After all, the kid who starts at first has a lead, right? (Or are they required to stay strictly on the bases? That makes a big difference.) Kids are usually pretty fast runners, and not usually very fast throwers (they just don’t have the muscle yet). So going for the double play makes it highly risky that they’d lose both outs most times.
Or am I underestimating the skill level of the infielders at that age?
on preview, never mind.
Since the rules were changed to allow for a greater degree pf competition than was present in the regular season I don’t have a problem with the Yankees manager changing his managerial decisions to reflect that.
My guess is that the kids, in the long run, continue to have fun in spite of their parents’ posturing and screaming. Parents are boneheads but kids are resilient. Good thing, too.
And to answer Hentor’s question and inject a little levity: Hell, no Iwouldn’t hit the ball to right if there was a girl out there! I’d hit it at the ground in front of short like I always do…
Well, they might not. Just how exactly do you think players learn to play the game? You pitch around, or intentionally walk, a better hitter to get to a worse hitter if the situation calls for it, and nine years old is entirely old enough to deal with that lesson.
And, where the hell do you get the idea that there is no honor in attacking the weak point of the opposition? Should one challenge Barry Bonds with fastballs when a rookie is on deck? Throw against Champ Bailey when Jerry Rice is running against a rookie on the other side? Ignore Shaq O’Neil when he is being tailed by a guard? Drive straight at Bobby Orr instead of passing to the open left winger? Where in the world did you learn how to play sports?