Posted on 08/10/2006 8:59:04 AM PDT by 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?
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
Folks need to read "Moneyball". Overwhelmingly, the key to scoring runs is getting men on base. During the height of the Barry Bonds HR chase, millions of Diamond Mind baseball simuations were run based upon a unique theory: What would produce more runs over the course of a season, walking a Barry Bonds/Babe Ruth/Mark McGwire every plate appearance or pitching to him?
The results were quite surprising: you would give up far more runs by walking those guys than by pitching to them.
Go after the big hitter.
In the majors every player has the ability to hit any pitch out of the park.
There are no victims in the majors looking for sympathy. Never pitch to Babe Ruth when a disabled Gehrig is up next.
Overwhelmingly, the key to winning a game is taking the easy outs.
Overwhelmingly, the key to being a good sport is playing the game the way it was intended.
Besides, we don't see 90 ft between bases here until after 12 years old.
Because they had good hitters behind them. If Bonds had the pitcher batting behind him, you'd walk him any time you had any base open, and come out ahead.
You walk the batter. We play sports games to win.
To quote an 8th Grade Social Studies teacher in my Junior High School, Mrs. Urban:
"Not knowing, I feel a great delicacy in articulating."
The kid was given a chance to be a hero. That's all you ask for. Sometimes you come through in the clutch, sometimes you don't. Whether you do or not is not important. It's being afforded the opportunity to succeed - and the support, encouragement and perserverance to push on to seek success after experiencing failure - that is everything in life.
Maybe the pitcher seems overpoweringly fast, and his coach exceedingly mean, but that's missing the point - and the beauty - of baseball. Once the ball leaves the pitcher's hand, he's powerless. Not a thing a pitcher, or his coach, can do to stop the batter. He gets to swing away at it, and as Joaquin Andujar once said: "Youneverknow." Maybe the batter isn't very strong, but you don't have to be if you make good contact.
And if he struck out, so what? Talk about failure: Reggie Jackson struck out 2,597 times and what do they call him?
Mr. October.
I agree with you on principle, but those results were over the course of a 162 game season where the team faces many different situations.
In this particular situation, you need one out. The tying run is on third. The hitter at the plate gets a hit (and likely knocks in the tying runner), let's say, 40 to 50 percent of the time, and make an out the rest of the time.
The kid in the on-deck circle would get a hit maybe 20% of the time, and make an out the rest of the time.
In this situation, it makes more sense to walk the slugger, since it increases your chances of winning the game by a pretty good margin. The other team would go from tying the game 40-50% of the time to only 20% of the time, while your chance of winning would go from 50-60% to 80%.
Josh Blue is a riot -- did he win?
SD
True... he was a great "story", but he was also really, really funny too.
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.
Bill Clinton: Shazaam! Those little-league moms are hot!
You pitch th the first kid, because the point of little league is to teach kids good sportsmanship and ethics as well as win.
These kids are learning and strategy is a large part of baseball.
BTW, go to a Pony League championship game if you think this isn't high stakes. Trust me, the poor hitter would know what they were doing either way.
The phrase "wait till next year" even come up?
Yes. "wait till next year" is normally a phrase used by a team that has finished down in the standings, not a strategy for a championship game.
You could be right about the coach using the worst after the best as a guilt strategy. Or it could be some other circumstance that caused the situation. Thought you may have had some inside information. That's why I asked.
I would "accidently" walk the star. However, no responsible coach would have the best hitter and the worst hitter bat back to back.
I agree with the statement about the coach putting the batters back to back. Also, in what batting order did the coach have his best hitter? Cleanup? 3rd? Well, if he did that would be good coaching because it makes sure his best player and the team gets the most out of his plate appearances. So therefore, a walk should be no big deal.
One thing from the article that did bother me, why Reilly, never ever went into the circumstances.
To be perfectly honest with you, this whole story sounds way to fishy, I may be a cynic, but look the story over, how much of this seems just a little "to perfect" for a controversial story?
None of this makes any difference. What counts is how much diversity is there on each lineup? Gays, girls, players of color, transgenders.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.