He's decent. And if you or Bruce or anyone else tries to beat that out of him, I swear to God I'll take him away.
Bonnie Waitzkin, Searching for Bobby Fischer
I'm watching the last little league game I attended. It was about 25 years ago and I want to say the kids were 6 or maybe 7. They're told to stay on the baseline, stay on the baseline, stay on the baseline. The batter hits a grounder to 3rd base. The 3rd baseman scoops it up when it gets to him and throws to the first baseman. His throw is woefully short and up the line. The first baseman goes up the line to wait on the dribbling throw. The runner approaches him and stops. He won't go out of the baseline. The ball finally gets to the first baseman and he tags the runner out. I turned to the person next to me and said I thought the runner should have been awarded first base because the base was blocked. She turns to me and says, "The runner should have run over the first baseman.". Alrighty then.
There's no crying in baseball.
Jimmy Dugan, A League of Their Own
The one I bring to you today features forfeits, resignations, and lawyers involved over ... a 9-year-old pitcher. Strike One: League officials issued a directive to a coach to replace 9-year-old pitcher Jericho Scott because he throws "so hard, fast and accurate that it might frighten or discourage other players". Duh, that's baseball, folks. It's perfectly natural to have some fear in you when you face a hard thrower. The thing is the "parents and coaches, not players, expressed a fear of Jericho's pitches". Strike Two: The other team walked off of the field and forfeited when Jericho was seen throwing warmup pitches. Yeah, those kids are learning a valuable life lesson from that. Strike Three: The league and Jericho's parents have both hired lawyers to sort this out. Incredible. Truthfully, I don't have a solution, either. Well, not a legal one...
The only problem with youth sports is
The Adults
9 days until football season ...
Quote of the Day
Jericho walked away from the mound in tears.
Pamela McLoughlin, NewHavenRegister.com
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "OMG, I thought. My landlord reads my blog. He's admitting it to me. I should acknowledge that. But how did he find it? Isn't that weird? That is weird. Should I... say something? "You know who I am?" Too weird."
Yeah, youth sports have just become another way for parents to work out their hopes, fears and frustrations through their kids.
My wife and I coached one of our kid's teams for a couple of years. My favorite part was the practices, because the parents would just leave you alone for the most part. We'd always have a group of kids who didn't want to quit at the end, and neither did I. Our league was pretty low key, but even so I had to ask some of the louder parents--the loudest was the most inept in baseball terms--to back off.
For the most part, though, I think a lot of these leagues are a poor substitute for the ancient practice of kids going out and picking up their own game. If they come to love their games that way, the team stuff will come later.
"For the most part, though, I think a lot of these leagues are a poor substitute for the ancient practice of kids going out and picking up their own game."
I think that's a sign of economic status these days, Dan. Today's affluent kids are hardly ever left to their own devices. They have to be organized and chaperoned to and from every activity. It may have always been that way. I don't know. The poor kids still have pickup games like you and I did when we were kids.