Posted on 06/25/2005 6:51:06 AM PDT by kiki04
Too Good to Play Thursday, June 23, 2005 A team of 11- and 12-year-old baseball players has been kicked out of its league — for being too good. Earlier this month, the Stars of Columbus, Ohio, were taken off the Canal Winchester Joint Recreation District's (search) schedule, and their $150 entry fee was refunded, reports The Columbus Dispatch. The 14 boys only joined the suburban league in early May, but since then had creamed every other team that faced them — 18-0, 13-0, 24-0, 10-2 and 17-6. "I called up the league office and said, 'No way are we going to play them,'" Terry Morris, who coaches another team in the division, told The Dispatch. "I wasn't going to subject my players to that." Pretty soon, all scheduled games were canceled, and the Stars found themselves orphaned. "I don't think it's fair," said Stars catcher and pitcher Michael Allston, who at 12 stands 5-foot-8. "We always played our best, and we were just winning games." "
[Another] team told us they didn't want their boys' self-esteem battered," said Trina Cochran, mother of 11-year-old Stars player Mario Cochran. "Our boys went into this with a good attitude," said Darla Perry, whose son R.J., 11, weighs 155 pounds. "It's turned into a disaster." Opponents' parents charged that the Stars' players were older than they claimed to be and that they were actually an "all-star" team culled from across Columbus. In return, the Stars' parents began bringing birth certificates to games, as well as documents showing that all but one of the boys lived in the same ZIP code. League officials and other teams' coaches are unrepentant. "They were just beating the rec kids up," said Michael Mirones, the league's board chairman. "It's no fun for the kids that are losing."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I don't follow baseball, so I don't understand this running up the score stuff. I would think, as a non-fan, that the goal of any sport is to score as many points as is possible while preventing your opponents from doing the same. Is that somehow not the case?
I agree with you on that point. However, I also feel the guys in blue have a part in the blame for this.
how do you figure?
If the game was a hit-a-thon or a walk-a-thon, then how can the umpire do anything but his job? You don't call strikes on balls 5 feet over everyone's head because the score is 20-0.....
Awww.
Poor babies.
Tell 'em to join the soccer geeks if they can't take getting their asses kicked.
Back to the basketball analogy. Would it really make sense to limit the game to those of average size? What would be next? Taller gymasts because the tiny ones have too much of an advantage? Fatter jockeys? Nature blesses some with gifts, including size and weight that are beneficial when playing certain sports. That's just life.
LOL
it was a damned rec league. Running up the score has no use and it just gets the winners thinking they are untouchable.
I bet you are one of the Little League parents group. Tell me, how many umpires have you threatened?
Why? Explain this to me. The idea behind a sport is to win by the largest margin possible. Hell, betting is even on point spreads.
The Babe Ruth here is 13-15 year olds.
I was comparing apples and oranges.
oh...
well their Bambino league (which is the Little League equivalent) is now the Cal ripken league.
he is building stadium replicas for their world series.
In my sport, karate, you don't go easier on an opponent because you're ahead on points or because your opponent looks hurt. Instead, you go harder because you can smell the blood in the water. I always knew I didn't like baseball, and now I know why.
Karate to baseball is like railroad spikes and twist ties....
they are completely different, except they are competitions.....
Having been on either end of scores similiar to those in the story, they are NO FUN to be on the losing side. Sure that is a lesson, but you really start to resent it when some kid is stealing 2nd, falls down ON PURPOSE to get into a rundown, just so you can score your 26th run. That play is something you do when you are desperate to score a run.
This story, along with Little League baseball and baseball leagues with kids that age are replete with HORRIBLE sportsmanship and disrespect.
tell me, do you disrespect your opponent when you have kicked the crap out of them in Karate?
I coached a Pinto(8-9 yr. old) team in '96. One team got the cream of the crop among the 9 year olds and the rest of us had to make do with what was left. Needless to say, the all-star team went unbeaten, then, to add insult to injury, the coach plucked the few talented players from the rest of the teams to go to All-Stars.
On the bright side, I had the nicest, most understanding parents in the league. A couple of dads helped out enormously as assistant coaches, and the mom's were all gorgeous hotties, including one who I ran into a few months later and asked me on a date. ;^)
you see, there you go.
The league I was in in Westerville was a bit like that, except the teams were a bit more even.
but you will still have games like that. Asking for consistency out of 8 or 9 yr olds is asking for A LOT when it comes to baseball...
Memo to Bill Belichick. You get one more SB ring and then you and your team are OUTTA HERE! Time to give Peyton Manning and the Colts a fighting chance.
So they are the winners by default then, right?
No kids.
But, in my previous life I was a bully.
When you're dealing with young kids, it's more important to learn how to play the game, and good sportsmanship. It's not about running up the score on inferior competition.
Charles H. did not posit a theory, he stated a fact. When I was playing Little League and Babe Ruth some 40 years ago (shudder), there were no rec leagues, or travel leagues. The closest thing I got to a rec league was when I was in 6th grade, and it was called Peanut League.
It was a league that required that everybody plays at least half the game. This was about the only time that I played on an excellent team, we went undefeated and won our league's championship. When we were leading by a sizable margin, we quit stealing bases, and any trash talking earned a place on the bench next to the coach.
What has been lost in this discussion by many of you (not you, Mike) is the role of good sportsmanship in youth sports. Far too many parents, living through their kids, harbor a notion that their child will hit the big payday by making it professionally.
From my experience, most of you out there have absolutely no clue as to the great chasm between being a great amateur and a mediocre professional. I think I do have that clue, as I spent my college years closely observing many fine athletes, while getting to know them as individuals and the sacrifice and effort they made to progress beyond the collegiate level.
For myself, I was a pretty good bowler, averaging 200+ for 25 years, winning several city and state championships. Even though I was in the top 2% of the bowlers where I lived (El Paso), the best 5 in the city would routinely get smacked whenever the PBA would come to town. I had several offers of sponsorship to try the PBA tour, and I politely refused, because I knew the change in lifestyle that would entail. It's not that I didn't have confidence in my ability, but I knew that it would require 10-12 hours of practice each day, and major investments in equipment and coaching.
The point I'm trying to make is that these parents would be far better off easing up on their kids, and spend more time on teaching them how to play and enjoy the game, instead of the incessant focus on winning. If their kids are that talented, the cream will still rise to the top.
BTW, the Yankees haven't won this century, and they don't look like a contender now. However, the Yankees don't try to steal bases when they're up by 10 runs, either.
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.