You make the call: Is it good baseball strategy or a weak attempt to win?

Sports Illustrated (SI.com) ^ | 8-8-2006 | Rick Reilly

[Edit35]

There's a two-hour and 15-minute time limit (or if it gets too dark during evening games in the opinion of the plate umpire) in the Little League games here in Pennsylvania.

I was umpiring a game one time (10-12 year olds) in which one team was winning by one run, and it was starting to get dark. (If it got too dark, the rulebook says the game reverts to the score in the last full inning played)

Anyway, the coach on the team that was winning told his players to tie their shoes, and/or switch bats, or to walk slow, and several other ways to stall the game. (I could hear them talking)

After two or three batters tied their shoes two or three times, each foot, I started calling strikes for each 15 seconds that the batter failed to get in the batters box to face the pitcher.

After I called one player out on strikes for stalling, the cheating team got the message and started playing the way Little League players show. Fairly, and none of this phony stall tactics.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Do you intentionally walk the star hitter so you can face the kid who can barely swing?

Absolutely.

If anybody whines about just tell them, "There's no crying in baseball!"

[scrabblehack]

I was thinking that the PONY world series was in Washington, PA (on the outskirts of our ol' buddy Murtha's district), but that's the 13-14 year-old group. The 9-10 year old group's world series was in Irving, TX this year. See www.pony.org. So no, I don't think it was the last game except for the losing team.

So do I intentionally walk? Yes. Do I pinch-hit? Hmmm...exactly how bad is this team's worst hitter? I can't see how the team would have made it to the league championship if he were as bad as all that....I'd have to say "maybe."

[SoftballMominVA]

This was not little league, it was PONY. Different rules.

[SoftballMominVA]

The losing team could have still made it to the PONY world series. If the winning team already had a bid, they could have passed theirs down to the 2nd place team.

And as a mom of a 16 year old who has been playing travel softball for almost 8 years, if walking the slugger gets you to a weak batter, you do it. Then you play your infield back and hope he doesn't lay down a squirrely bunt that gets him to first and the third basemen home for the win.

[traditional1]

"This was not little league, it was PONY. Different rules.

I've coached Little League, PONY League, American Legion, etc.

Different rules but still a "game", not a "Professional Sport"

In none of these leagues does the fate of the World, as we know it, hang in the balance....

Let the kids play and learn life's lessons, ood and bad.

[SoftballMominVA]

Then you know that PONY is a bit more competitive at 9/10 than Little League is. Most people who are not in the sport think of Little League as more loosey-goosey, less competition, more instructional, not really counting the scores type of organization. I'm pretty sure that in Little League you can't intentionally walk a player, at least not that that level.

I agree with you though, it's a game, there is a winner, there is a loser. Play it by the rules and treat everyone equally.