Pitch the slugger or the cancer vic?

The BBQ Pit
161

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Actually, he’s an 11 year old with diabetes. But that really is beside the point. On that note, I agree with some of the criticism of the parents. I wouldn’t have made a lot of noise about my son’s condition in the context of this situation. It really is about fair play and integrity and honor for me. It reminds me of the coaches who have yelled misleading instructions to the other team, or the coaches who had the kids take extra bases when that wasn’t done, or the coaches who, in a game when kids hit off the tee if they missed four coach pitches and there weren’t usually catchers, put a kid back by the backstop to jump out and try to throw kids out at first base.

It’s just a matter of playing, in a participatory league where winning is secondary, in a way that subverts the game because you want an advantage.

At this point, I’ll have to say, like we used to say, “Let the babies have their way.” You can’t compel someone to be honorable.
[/QUOTE]

Damn, I could have sworn it was a girl! Are you absolutely sure he’s a boy? :smiley:

Hentor, there are an awful lot of miles between an intentional walk and real unsportsmanlike or dishonorable behavior. Your examples are things that are just flat out wrong, and would be in any context. That’s not the same as an intentional walk. I’m sorry, but an intentional walk is a long-standing baseball strategy, and it’s about 150 years too late to say it’s unsportsman-like or dishonorable. I know these are kids, not pro adults, but it’s still baseball, and they know the rules and customs of pro-ball too.

And, I’m sorry again, but a championship game is not a situation in which winning is secondary. Even with little kids. If they’re old enough to have a championship, then they’re old enough to be using every advantage they honorably and legally can to win. Don’t you get it? They want to win every bit as bad as the coaches, maybe a lot more!

And the people running the game clearly agreed with me on this point, because they relaxed the rules of play to allow a more competitive game in the championship. If they didn’t think it was the case, they had no business relaxing the rules.

This wasn’t the same as deliberately trying to confuse little kids on the other team by using your status as an adult to mess them up. It was a legitimate baseball strategy that every kid on both those teams knew and had seen dozens if not hundreds of times. The kids on the team that in fact won would probably have been wondering like crazy why the coach didn’t have the pitcher pitch around the slugger if he hadn’t; I imagine there are plenty of bullpen lawyers at that age just as there are at any other.

162

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Because at this particular game at this particular moment, the stakes were particularly high?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I agree. So it would be disingenuous to describe it as a coach selecting the most obvious strategy for a given game situation or trying to teach his kids about the rules, otherwise he would have made the same choice many other times.

In this instance, it was a coach ignoring the same unwritten rule he (and everyone else, apparently) had followed all season, a rule that has a logical, “best for the kids” rationale, so they he could be sure his team would win the title game. That’s all. That may be fine for some people, and this is certainly a matter of opinion. But that’s what he did.

He didn’t say ahead of the game to the other coach, “Hey, Other Coach, just so you know, all bets are off this game.” He employed a strategy at a point in the game where only his team could benefit from it, despite the fact that had the other team followed the same strategy, perhaps the game could have been quite different at that point.

Here’s an analogy for you. I’m not a cycling expert by a long stretch, but my understanding is that in the Tour de France, the unwritten rule is that if the leader takes a spill, none of the followers will overtake him, because that’s not how they think a race should be won. Would certainly be within the rules to do so. But nobody does.

Now, if a given racer said ahead of the race, “Sorry fellas, but I am not following this practice,” then at least the other racers can decide whether or not they’ll extend him this courtesy if he’s the leader and he crashes. But to just ignore it mid-race it unsportsmanlike. Doesn’t violate any rule. It’s just shitty. That’s what this coach did.

163

[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
First off, given that the coaches strategy is quite common and effective and no doubt employed often enough without criticism by the unbiased fan, it is therefore legitimate.
[/QUOTE]
No, this is just flat-out wrong. You may still conclude that it was acceptable, but this was not common and in fact, this was the first time the entire season that this coach made such a call. This is not at all a common strategy in Little League–certainly it does not appear to be in the league in question.

164

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
Yes, I agree. So it would be disingenuous to describe it as a coach selecting the most obvious strategy for a given game situation or trying to teach his kids about the rules, otherwise he would have made the same choice many other times.

In this instance, it was a coach ignoring the same unwritten rule he (and everyone else, apparently) had followed all season, a rule that has a logical, “best for the kids” rationale, so they he could be sure his team would win the title game. That’s all. That may be fine for some people, and this is certainly a matter of opinion. But that’s what he did.

He didn’t say ahead of the game to the other coach, “Hey, Other Coach, just so you know, all bets are off this game.” He employed a strategy at a point in the game where only his team could benefit from it, despite the fact that had the other team followed the same strategy, perhaps the game could have been quite different at that point.

Here’s an analogy for you. I’m not a cycling expert by a long stretch, but my understanding is that in the Tour de France, the unwritten rule is that if the leader takes a spill, none of the followers will overtake him, because that’s not how they think a race should be won. Would certainly be within the rules to do so. But nobody does.

Now, if a given racer said ahead of the race, “Sorry fellas, but I am not following this practice,” then at least the other racers can decide whether or not they’ll extend him this courtesy if he’s the leader and he crashes. But to just ignore it mid-race it unsportsmanlike. Doesn’t violate any rule. It’s just shitty. That’s what this coach did.
[/QUOTE]

OK, one or the other of us is wrong here, because my understanding was that the rules were deliberately and officially relaxed for the championship game. And again, that’s a whole different thing from what you’re describing here.

165

[QUOTE=Oy!]
OK, one or the other of us is wrong here, because my understanding was that the rules were deliberately and officially relaxed for the championship game. And again, that’s a whole different thing from what you’re describing here.
[/QUOTE]
Hm. If I missed that, then I’d have to rethink my position. Did I miss this point?

166

Intentional Walks are allowed in Little League. The pitcher doesn’t actually throw a ball, but the catcher informs the umpire that they want to walk the batter and the batter takes first. Given that a special rule is written, it obviously happens (and for kids the same age as the ones in the game described above).

167

I’m not questioning that they’re permitted. In fact, that seems to be a given.

168

Oy!, it just occurred to me that your earlier observation might have been a suggestion that I could identify with the parents of the weakened child. Perhaps not, but I just want to disabuse you of that idea if that is the case. My son was always one of the best or the best hitter on his team until his last season. He has a real strong natural swing, and just about hit it out of the park on several occasions (which was never done that I saw, until his last season). I’m very proud of him. (He also has a wicked fastball, but he gets so frustrated if he is struggling with accuracy that once he goes off track, he just can’t seem to get it back, but that is neither here nor there, I suppose.)

But I would never want his team to win because one of his coaches took advantage of a commonly understood practice that was not expressly written down. In fact, if he won dishonorably, I might suggest to him that he not accept the trophy.

I guess it is simply a matter of what people can comfortably do and still look themselves in the mirror. I’d like to think that we try to teach kids to have that level of integrity, but perhaps I’m a bit of an idealist.

169
  1. Playing by the rules is an important life lesson for kids to learn.
  2. Losing is an important life lesson for kids to learn.
  3. 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 can’t BELIEVE you people who want a different set of rules for just one kid.

I don’t have any problems with changing the league rules, especially since so many others have been changed to make it more fun for kids. But you don’t do this in the middle of a game.

That little boy learned EXACTLY the correct lesson from the experience, no thanks to his parents.

170

[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
…snip…
I can’t BELIEVE you people who want a different set of rules for just one kid.

I don’t have any problems with changing the league rules, especially since so many others have been changed to make it more fun for kids. But you don’t do this in the middle of a game.

That little boy learned EXACTLY the correct lesson from the experience, no thanks to his parents.
[/QUOTE]

I have largely disagreed with *Hentor ** in this thread, but I do not think that **Hentor ** was suggesting that they should use “a different set of rules for just one kid”.
That would be a mis-characterization. I think **Hentor ** thinks it was wrong to walk the slugger to get to any weak hitter as that was not the normal method of play in this league. I continue to disagree, but I think that is **Hentor’s ** reasonable point.

Jim

  • Hentor, I am sorry if my expressing a preference for **Garfield ** as a coach was highly offensive, I did state I would not want you as a coach, but that I would prefer Garfield.
171

Boyo Jim, are you actually reading this thread?

172

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Winning is not the point of the league. Sure, each kid is encouraged to do his best to win at any point in the game—batting, pitching, catching, throwing, running—but this is a league that exists to foster participation.
[/QUOTE]
If winning isn’t the point of the league, why keep score? why have a champioship game?

When I was growing up, I played in a similar league, everybody played a minimum of 2 innings and batted at least once, and it was still competitive.

Romney participated, and made an out.
Everybody makes an out.
I have yet to hear of someone never making an out for a season.
Baseball is one of the few sports where you can fail 2 times out of 3 and still be considered a very player.

I have been a youth coach(football, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball) for over 20 years, and a few of the things I have garnered is that every kid wants to play, have fun…and win.

Now in my years of coaching, I have never seen an intentional walk, at that level.
However, there are ways to get around a hitter that you’d like to avoid.
You just don’t give him anything to hit. Pitch him low and away, in the dirt, and if he/she wants to chase a pitch out of the zone, fine let him.
I’ve had other teams do this my players and well…that’s just part of the game.
I know that at 9-10 years of age throwing the ball where you intend to doesn’t happen most of the time.
You just gotta have faith in your guy to pitch smart, the way coach should have already taught him.

I think the coach erred in giving the kid an intentional walk. Should have pitched him “smart”.
I think the other coach erred in batting Romney after his best hitter, and thus leaving the possibilty of the scenario that played out.
The making of a batting order should be a well thought out plan, this one wasn’t.

But in all this mess, some are failing to see that Romney learned a valuable lesson.

173

[QUOTE=What Exit?]

  • Hentor, I am sorry if my expressing a preference for **Garfield ** as a coach was highly offensive, I did **not ** state I would not want you as a coach, but that I would prefer Garfield.
    [/QUOTE]

:smack: Corrected note.

174

[QUOTE=imthjckaz]
If winning isn’t the point of the league, why keep score? why have a champioship game?
[/QUOTE]
Sheesh, this is tiresome. Everyone is in such a rush to respond to “PC namby-pamby-ism” that the actual points raised are completely ignored.

175

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Oy!, it just occurred to me that your earlier observation might have been a suggestion that I could identify with the parents of the weakened child. Perhaps not, but I just want to disabuse you of that idea if that is the case. My son was always one of the best or the best hitter on his team until his last season. He has a real strong natural swing, and just about hit it out of the park on several occasions (which was never done that I saw, until his last season). I’m very proud of him. (He also has a wicked fastball, but he gets so frustrated if he is struggling with accuracy that once he goes off track, he just can’t seem to get it back, but that is neither here nor there, I suppose.)

But I would never want his team to win because one of his coaches took advantage of a commonly understood practice that was not expressly written down. In fact, if he won dishonorably, I might suggest to him that he not accept the trophy.

I guess it is simply a matter of what people can comfortably do and still look themselves in the mirror. I’d like to think that we try to teach kids to have that level of integrity, but perhaps I’m a bit of an idealist.
[/QUOTE]

I think it’s way cool that your son is such a good player. Reminds me of my former brother-in-law, who, although born with deformed arms that made him look like a thalidomide baby (although he was born many years after that, so there was some other cause, can’t remember off the top of my head what), was one of the top baseball players in his schools, and I think went on to state level. Obviously your son doesn’t have anything like my b-i-l’s problems to over come, but it’s always nice to remember that being sick or something doesn’t necessarily make you a bad athlete.

Now I’m thoroughly confused, so I’m backing out of this thread altogether. I think I got the idea that the rules had been officially relaxed from post #79, and I don’t know where MonkeyMensch got the idea, so now I’m utterly boggled and I’m getting out now!

Last words: Romney’s cool, his parents are jerks, although I can see how easy it would be to become that kind of jerk in their situation.

176

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Garfield226 has just wanted to be a sniveling little jerk in his responses about a matter that catches me up in a sense of justice, fair play, honor and not being a dick when it comes to children’s team sports.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, and because I disagree with you, you call me a cunt. Very honorable. Aside from the nacho-boy statement (which you haven’t refulted…don’t worry, there’s no dishonor in working the concession stand), those others are only insults if your skin is thinner than the paper you wrap the hotdogs in. If you’ll notice, I’ve only been a “sniveling little jerk” toward you. Wonder why that is? And you still haven’t come up with a plausible reason Romney was batting behind the slugger.

It was actually just two posts ahead of yours (I had trouble finding it when I looked), and you already pretty much covered it: Not walking in the winning run. For people who are fans of “unwritten rules” there are a couple other situations where you don’t walk a guy, as well. Granted, the percentage is low, but it’s not EVERY situation.

Yes, they relaxed the rules and for that reason the fact the manager didn’t do it all season may or may not have a bearing on how dickish it was in this case: The Salt Lake Tribune story says that the noncompetitive limitations were suspended for the championship game. It depends on what the limits were that were suspended and what the remaining rules in effect were.

The article goes on to say that the slugger had already – in this game – hit a triple and a three-run homer. He wasn’t being walked because of reputation alone.

The coach does backpedal in that article (or he was misquoted in the original one), saying if he had known about the cancer, he would have pitched to the slugger.

177

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
Boyo Jim, are you actually reading this thread?
[/QUOTE]

Yes, and it’s gone way off track from the OP. The coaches stayed within the rules of the game, one team lost and another won, and so what if it’s “uncommon” to intentionally walk a better, it’s not unheard of.

Like I (and others) said, if the league wants to rule out intentional walks, that’s perfectly ok. Maybe they will do that for next season.

My comment about “… just one kid” was addressed to those who suggest that was happened in that particular game was wrong or unfair. That suggests to me that the child somehow was entitled to special treatment because of his medical condition. If he were just another shitty batter, thet news stories would never have been written.

Perhaps I have drawn the wrong inference from from the responses – if so I apologize for any misunderstanding. Perhaps they all meant that the league rules were badly made, allowing too much competitiveness and discrimination against children with the least talent. I don’t have any arguement with that point of view.

178

[QUOTE=Garfield226]
Yes, they relaxed the rules and for that reason the fact the manager didn’t do it all season may or may not have a bearing on how dickish it was in this case: The Salt Lake Tribune story says that the noncompetitive limitations were suspended for the championship game. It depends on what the limits were that were suspended and what the remaining rules in effect were.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with that last sentence. If it were stated that intentional walks were no longer against the “rule” (unwritten or otherwise), that’s a horse of a different color.

179

You don’t abandon your humanity just because there’s a little gold trophy at stake. The coaches missed a golden opportunity to teach their team that there are more important measures of victory than the final score.

180

[QUOTE=PunditLisa]
You don’t abandon your humanity just because there’s a little gold trophy at stake. The coaches missed a golden opportunity to teach their team that there are more important measures of victory than the final score.
[/QUOTE]

But if the kid’s just a crappy hitter, throw a few fastballs down the middle, right?