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

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

[BaBaStooey]

This actually happened. Your job is to decide whether it should have.

In a nine- and 10-year-old PONY league championship game in Bountiful, Utah, the Yankees lead the Red Sox by one run. The Sox are up in the bottom of the last inning, two outs, a runner on third. At the plate is the Sox' best hitter, a kid named Jordan. On deck is the Sox' worst hitter, a kid named Romney. He's a scrawny cancer survivor who has to take human growth hormone and has a shunt in his brain.

So, you're the coach: Do you intentionally walk the star hitter so you can face the kid who can barely swing?

[Sir Gawain]

LOL, I don't care who you are, that's some funny stuff right thar.

[ArrogantBustard]

Last line in the article:

By the way, the next morning, Romney woke up and decided to do something about what happened to him.
"I'm going to work on my batting," he told his dad. "Then maybe someday I'll be the one they walk."

Something to think about ...

As for me ... I dislike designated hitters, non-batting pitchers, and intentional walks. But I don't make the rules.

[TankerKC]

If you want to do the right thing in your life, you pitch to him.

Uh...yeah.

So, like I was saying...walk the star.

[Sir Gawain]

If you want to do the right thing in your life, you pitch to him.

Let's say you pitch to the star, he gets a single and now there's still a man on third, and cancer boy is up to bat. Now what do you do? Throw the game for a feel good moment for the other team?

[#1CTYankee]

Strategy in baseball is just that, entering the human element into the equation doesn't enter into it.(If your only out to win.)

Anyone can get lucky on any given day, it's all about increasing your chances of winning.

[kevkrom]

If you want to do the right thing in your life, you pitch to him.

What's "right" about that? Patronizing the "cripple"? Making an example that it's better to be PC than play to win?

The real jerk would have to be the opposing coach for setting his lineup in such a matter as to even make this situation happen.

[kidd]

Since this is a political forum:

John Kerry: I'd have chosen to pitch to Jordan before I didn't pitch to Jordan.

Jacques Chirac: I'd forefeit.

Barney Frank: Hmmm. Young boys!

Ted Kennedy: I'd offer the next player to score a ride home. That should stop them from scoring.

Hillary Clinton: Being a lifelong Yankee fan, I'd try for a touchdown.

[rudy45]

If the child is playing in the game, he should be held to the same standards as everyone else--no more, no less. If he can't compete at that level, then he should sit out the game.

[TankerKC]

Cutting a kid with cancer some slack is all about doing the right thing.

Kinda like leaving when you are outed?

[r9etb]

Agreed.

My biggest problem with the story is that Romney's family expected him to get a break, just because of his illness. They shouldn't see this as an insult, but rather as just a result of being ON A TEAM. You try your best, and if you fail... well, you still tried your best. It's a Pony-league game, after all: who really gives a rat's ass?

Still, the idea of not pitching to every kid who comes to bat in a Pony-league game is crap.

[dfwgator]

It depends if Pete Rose had money riding on the game.

[Lx]

In the end:

By the way, the next morning, Romney woke up and decided to do something about what happened to him. "I'm going to work on my batting," he told his dad. "Then maybe someday I'll be the one they walk."

Good attitude by the kid.

[#1CTYankee]

"Until the kids graduate to 90ft you play with what you have. Once they get onto the big boys diamond, can take leads on the pitcher, and have 300'+ fences you can think about playing strategy. At this age the coach should be stressing fundamentals, not gamesmanship."

Even if it's for the league championship?

Not in my book.

[TankerKC]

This is a league where everybody gets to bat, there's a four-runs-per-inning max...

Four runs per inning? Max?

Why bother with a "Championship Game" then?

[BaBaStooey]

Its amazing that he has that attitude, considering the attitudes of his coach and parents are complete crap.

I wonder where he gets crazy thoughts like "I'm gonna work hard" from.

[wbill]

Of course you walk him, it would not be fair to the rest of the team if you didn't play to win.

Thank you. A voice of sanity.

I think that the adults are blowing this out of proportion, and I liked the kid's attitude "I'll take batting practice so that next time, I'm the one that they walk." Great lesson learned here.

[libbylu]

The best hitters on the team strike out too. There are 3 outs per inning, and usually 6 innings that age group. The cancer kid no more lost the game than any of the other players.

[Sonny M]

Why put the worse hitter after the best? Kind of like putting "Mendoza" after Ortiz instead of Manny..

Because they wanted to guilt the other team into pitching to their best hitter.

Its messed up, and it didn't work, but that was the idea.

[BlueNgold]

Dude - they are 9 and 10.

9
and
10

Get it?

In this situation, having coached, umpired, managed, etc etc I can guarantee that the coaches and parents are much more worried about the win than the kids are.

Where do you keep your trophies from when you were 10? By the time I was 12 they were already in the garage. Time to clean off the mantel and let kids be kids. There is a time to get 'tough' but this is not it.

[Arkinsaw]

You must walk the star. This is baseball. The cancer survivor kid was given a chance to be the big hero. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it does not.

If that kid had hit...he would have been a hero. It is better for him to be treated as any other player and have that opportunity and not come through, than not have the opportunity at all. If it had turned out the other way, it would have been the feel-good story of the year.

When kids start baseball, these things should be explained. You should inform the smaller kids, or the less talented kids, that the way the game is designed, they will be tested more than the more talented. Thats baseball.

You pays your nickel, you do the best you can, and you live with what happens.

The kid's going to learn to hit better. That's the lesson.