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 ...
From the source I was talking with, this is a fairly common occurence when I think about it. Virtually every Little League has that kind of a-hole coach that wants to win and live vicariously through the kids.
Besides, this was a rec league team. Sure they were kicking the crap out of teams in Canal Winchester, but that is a small town. This team would be destroyed in Pickerington or Reynoldsburg by their common teams, i.e. drafted teams, and probably most of the rest of Columbus as well.
Way too many. Not only can't I spell, but it uglied me up good.
Nailhead, hammer, bang!
I came back to this thread today to say precisely what you have said so well.
No community needs a Steinbrenner in their kids league but virtually every one has one.
The first time I coached a kid's team I was 19. I was year out of high school when I bumped into the fine gentleman who was head basketball and baseball coach and assistant football coach at my alma mater. He cared about kids!
Our kid baseball teams were organized around grade school districts. Coach K told me that the district adjacent to the one I grew up in couldn't seem to come up with a coach, and would I be willing?
Well, as is very often the case, in the group of enthusiastic kids that greeted me there was one lad that was endowed with skills far above the level of his peers. You know the kind, I'm sure. Well, I decided instantly that he would be our Pitcher/Shortstop.
A couple of weeks later practices were going pretty well and Jimmy C. was turning out to be a good leader as well as a sterling performer. Then one evening he came to me after practice.
"Mr. C, I have something I have to tell you. My birthday is four days past eligible for the league."
What I thought was, "Oh, dang Jimmy, I wish you would have kept that to yourself!" ;o)
But I swallowed hard and said, "Jimmy I'm proud of you for coming forward like this". We're not a big town and I continued to run into him and we were friends for years afterward.
We wouldn't have been a great team with Jimmy, and we proceeded to pretty consistently take our lumps without him. Then, about mid-season, a team from a few districts way approached me for a scrimmage game, and I thought why not, we need all the practice we can get. ;o)
Well, long story a little shorter we beat 'em and my kids were ecstatic. They got a taste of victory and loved it! They bugged me the rest of the season for practice games with "G.P." school. I was happy to comply and we won enough of 'em to make the boys first exposure to competitive play a more pleasant memory.
Kid sports should be about building pleasant memories and life long relationships. But, as you point out, there are unfortuantely those few a-holes who will never get it.
I never boxed beyond Boys Club, but enjoyed it as a spectator most of my life (till it got corrupted beyond belief).
Still enjoy amateur boxing, sorry you got some other impression.
I quit watching boxing when it became corrupt as well. I have seen a fight in years now. The sport is just a shadow of what it used to be.
I'd like to set everyone straight. I coach in the CW league that the "Stars" were kicked out of. The reason that they were asked to leave is because they lied and got into the league under false pretense. The Canal Rec league is community based. In the Canal league, in this division we have 3 teams from our village (4500 residents). There are two teams from Sugar Grove, three teams from Carroll/Lithopolis and one team from World Harvest church (all very small towns). In the Spring, the "Stars" asked to join the league and told the Commissioner that they were from the small village of Obetz. After the 1st 3 games when it was obvious that this was not a "rec" team, an investigation was done to determine if the addresses of the team members were from Obetz. They were not! In the Columbus Dispatch article, the author states that only one player does not live in the 43207 zip code. So what!!!!...that zip code contains almost 50,000 residents and stretches from north of I70 down to the Franklin/Pickaway county line! So much for community based. After this information was discovered, the "Stars" were asked to leave. One of their parents cried to the Dispatch and this whole mess started. Even though the author of the article was given these facts he chose to ignore them....never let the truth get in the way of a good story! After all this hubub hit about the "Stars", it was discovered that the team was kicked out of their travel league last year for abusive behavior. Don't you think it is odd that a team so good would choose to beat up on a bunch of "rec" teams by 20 runs every game? How does that help you improve? The answer is that the "Stars" were not welcome anywhere else. The league since has determined that the "Stars" were also kicked out of their 2003 league. The Canal Rec Dept. has issued press releases to tell the real truth, but as of yet no one is interested in telling that side of the story....why ruin a good story? Now this story has gone National as all the wire services have picked up this story. I had to chase TV cameras from FOX Sports (Chicago) out of my dugout last week!! Our community has chosen to take the high road in all this, but enough is enough. The teams in our league are preparing a response. When enough parents get involved, hopefully someone at the Dispatch will give us a voice and end this nightmare. I'm sorry for this long post, but I just had to get if off my chest after watching our community get dragged through the mud for the past few weeks. Thank you.
Thank you for the whole story. Why did the writers totally ignore the facts? Can any of you set the record straight for the media????
Good. I was hoping there was more to the story than what was written. They need to be exposed for the cheaters and hacks that they are.
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