little league brings out the best in everyone.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/rick_reilly/08/07/reilly0814/index.html
when i was in little league, many shameful things happened. girls weren't allowed to play. more than one grounder went through my legs. after hitting 2 home runs off of my best friend he told me that my mom had bribed him to give me good pitches. one of my coaches called me and my friend scott "ladies" because we were always joking around. the president of the league pushed to get lights installed on the fields and was caught drunk at three in the morning on the field the night they were installed. this guy loved baseball, and his son was an emotionally crippled alien-boy who would creep out a pedophile. oddly enough, he got in trouble for grabbing a substitute teacher's ass. and it wasn't even at his own school.
oh man, that's a story.
Comments
See, I have a problem with this. The coach was strategizing to win the game. That's how you win - by walking the star batter and making the weaker player strike out. No one would have any problem with this if the weaker player were not a cancer survivor. If he hadn't made that decision, there's still no guarantee the team would have won. Everyone likes to say that sports for children are about fun and participation and happiness, but that's not true. Whether for adults or kids, sports are about winning. Not playing to win is just anathema.
Posted by: Victoria | August 16, 2006 3:01 PM
yeah, but this particular game was part of a league with all sorts of rules like 1 hour game time limits, a 4 run per inning max, and such. i agree that pitching to the cancer kid is not a guarunteed win -- hell, if the kid had gotten a basehit the article would be about the triumph of the human spirit, not about the dirtbag coaches.
but, really, why not just bean the kid, load the bases, and then argue that you were creating a force play at home. that woulda been better PR.
Posted by: evan | August 16, 2006 3:06 PM