There's no cryin' in baseball!
Posted on 04/30/2005 8:36:32 PM PDT by KneelBeforeZod
Column: Softball coach snaps the unwritten rules
BY JEFF NELSON When written rules are broken, punishment follows.
It's a basic tenet in sports, and one we see practiced nearly every day.
What we don't often see, and frankly, what I can't ever recall seeing, is a punishment for breaking unwritten rules. But that appears to be what took place at Central Cabarrus High this past week.
Softball coach Monte Sherrill was suspended by the school for two games after his team, which is ranked fourth in the nation by USA Today, beat West Charlotte, 55-0, on April 15.
Go ahead and read that score again; it's not a typo. And to make matters worse, the game lasted just two innings (two innings!) before West Charlotte's athletic director asked officials to end it.
According to a published report, the coach and athletic director at Central Cabarrus won't comment on the game or the suspension, but the West Charlotte athletic director said Central Cabarrus continued to play aggressively as the Vikings scored 30 runs in the first inning and 25 more in the second.
While I wasn't at the game and can't know all of the circumstances surrounding the game, I did talk with four Union County softball coaches about the score and suspension, and they helped me come to a conclusion: Sherrill could have prevented the score from reaching such laughable heights, and because he didn't, he deserved a suspension.
To make things clear, none of the four county coaches could say with certainty that they agreed with the suspension. They all said they needed more information.
But Eddie Rivers of Forest Hills, Misty Tarleton of Parkwood, Tad Baucom of Piedmont, and Sarah Keziah of Monroe all said there are a common set of unwritten rules for coaching in a blowout, and those rules shouldn't be broken.
"There's a lot of ways to avoid letting (the score) get away from you," Baucom said. "You can hit balls to the fence and stop your kids at first base. On the 35 or so passed balls, you don't take a base. And you don't steal a base."
By playing this brand of station-to-station softball, you give the opposing team as many chances as possible to record three outs each inning without an excess of runs crossing the plate. Once you have a big lead, it's also common to put in backups who aren't as good and don't often get a chance to play.
Scores can still get out of hand this way - there have been several cases of 15-0 type scores in the county this year - but teams never approach the point of humiliation.
The N.C. High School Athletic Association does have a mercy rule that's meant to protect against excessive blowouts - if one team is ahead by more than 10 after five innings, the game is called - but because of the severe gap in talent between many teams, these unwritten rules are often needed to just get to the fifth inning with a respectable score.
In all fairness, sometimes it's hard to keep the score down, Rivers said, and he can understand a bad blowout every now and then. After all, he won't actually tell his kids to strike out on purpose or make an out on purpose.
"I'm not going to make a travesty of the game to not embarrass you," he said. "On the other hand, if (Sherrill) didn't do the things you're supposed to do, then I think he's making a travesty of the game."
The things you're supposed to do ... the unwritten rules ... that's what this is about.
Monroe has been on the losing end of a couple 10-run games to county opponents this year, but Keziah said her Redhawks were facing teams with integrity who didn't let things get out of hand.
"The Piedmont team, the Forest Hills team, those are the two we've played locally and they've gone out of their way to make sure that we were not humiliated," Keziah said. "Piedmont and Forest Hills have class. They treat us with respect; they don't try to humiliate our girls."
If Central Cabarrus was trying to humiliate West Charlotte, the Vikings' motive could have dealt with personal reasons we don't know about. Or, as two coaches suggested, the Vikings may have been trying to pad their stats to improve their national ranking.
Both of those are poor excuses, however, and neither can absolve Sherrill for allowing his team's rout.
When all four county coaches were asked if there's any reason a team should score 55 runs, they all said no. When they were asked if they could prevent their team from scoring 55 runs, they all said yes.
Play by the unwritten rules, and it won't happen.
Don't play by the unwritten rules, and you get suspended.
First off this is a HIGH SCHOOL sports team. A coaches job at this level is to be a mentor for the team. The vast majority of the players that person coaches will end their career at the high school level. I don't know if i believe the coach should have been suspended for doing this but some reprocusions should have been taken against the coach. What message are we sending the children by running the score up. Even at the professional level there is sportsmanship. If a player is injured in a soccer game and the opposing team has the ball they will kick the ball out of bounds to allow the injured player to be taken off the field. Then in turn they will recieve the ball back. Yes its a dog eat dog world but we've got to be teaching children tact, fair play, and ethics. Running the score up like that in a High School game was totally unethical.
True. But that puts the onus on three kids to look bad in comparison to their teammates.
I believe it was the responsibility of the adult officials to invoke the mercy rule rather than expect the kids to fake striking out. If you have to resort to faking, what's the point of even continuing the game?
As far as the Coach, he should have benched all of his starters and let the bench warmers into the game.
Wonder what the point spread was on the game? And did they cover?
What's this guy supposed to do? Tell his kids not to play the game? The other team dogging it after scoring 20 runs is supposed to make the losing team feel better? If he takes his first string out after 20 runs and the scrubs give up 21, what then? You can't put a player back in after they have been pulled. You want someone to follow an unwritten rule? Write it down.
Bad sign for sportsmanship?
Cabarrus coach's suspension after 55-0 win prompts debate
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/11498500.htm
POLL | Does running up the score indicate bad sportsmanship?
Yes
241 votes (60%)
No
158 votes (40%)
PC stupidity strikes again.
Oh, pleeeease!
LoL! Makes it even more silly. Yes, yawwwwwwwwn...
I agree. But I think it is the responsibility of the loosing coach to "surrender". He should know his own team. If they are being outclassed, and his team is doing the best they can, call it quick. Let his team no there was no shame in it since they were doing thier best, we just need more practice. If his team was getting beat because they are out ther goofing off, I'd keep the game going.
4 things kids need to learn from sports.
1. The desire to win.
2.How to win graciously.
3.To always be doing your best no matter what the circumstances, till the game is over or called.
4.How to loose without being totally crushed confidence wise.
Becky
The coach of the loosing team is the one that needs to be suspended, if any one is.
Becky
People do get suspended for being jerks, however. And in this sense, a jerk can be a "loser."
Should the coach of Georgia Tech have been suspended for having laid a BIG beating on Cumberland 222-0? Based on this criteria, I'd say yes.
THe difference there is that running is an individual sport, and even more important is a sport where you compete against a clock. Sure, it may be a bit humiliating to have a bunch of other runners come in before you, but you already know what your best time is, and you already know how many kids in the world can run much faster than you, so the humiliation is just that it is made obvious.
Your running faster than all the other kids didn't in any way make them run slower, or keep them from being able to run the entire race.
So in many ways it is different than a softball game where if the other team runs up the score you don't get a chance to bat.
There's no cryin' in baseball!
Guess where this is coming from, no other than cabberus county.
I am of the firm belief that teams that are not good and playing against top ranking teams should be humiliated as much as possible. It just shows how badly their coach is.
Actually, I don't know about a suspension, but a major tongue-lashing by the school's atheltic director (or equivalent at a high school) for a major drubbing like this. Big-headed, ego-driven, selfish attitudes are what ruin sports for me. Whatever happened to graciousness in victory? But, judging from some of the other posts on this thread, it's apparent that classlessness isn't exclusive to the field of play.
The two teams referenced in the article are high school teams. They probably are in the same high school district, or are at least neighboring districts. The two schools probably play each other in football, basketball, water polo, and all the rest. This wasn't one inferior team asking for a match-up against a top ranked team.
How were they bullying, exactly? Simply by outscoring?
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