Is This Where We Have Gotten To?!

Aaron Shurtleff | August 17, 2006
SPORTS?

I had thought someone else would have brought this up, but I'll be the villian!

OK, listen. This is a very very sad story. The heart strings are tugged, and this is a bad situation. I got it. But, this is a competitive sport. I played in a baseball league as a youth with the everybody gets to bat, mercy rules, etc. If anyone tries to tell you it's youth baseball and it's not competitive, bullsh!t. Absolute and utter bullsh!t. Sports are competitive, that's the nature of the beast. Those kids take this as seriously as any MLB player, don't doubt.

And what does the coach tell his team? "Listen. I know we can better our chances of winning this championship (don't miss that this is not just some foo-foo game, this is the championship game, now) game, but we're going to pitch to the player that has killed us twice today, because that's the nice thing to do." No. No team accepts that. You don't play your way into the championship final game, just to throw it away to be compassionate. You don't! That coach would be under just as much fire now if he had pitched to the best player.

And plus, Romney gets another chance at bat! If he would have hit the ball, and got that winning run, he'd be the hero. In my opinion, he still is the hero. If you read the end of the article, Romney is going to go back out there, work on his hitting, and he wants to be the guy they intentionally walk. That's sports. That's what it is. If they allow one guy to be treated special, they have to treat everyone special, and then you might as well stop having sports, because then you just need to get a whole team of "special cases", and there will be no need to have a season. The "special" kids win by default.

I might be in the minority, but I say the coach absolutely did the right thing. If you don't want to play by the rules of the game, don't play. It is sound strategy to walk the best player, and pitch to a lesser player. Any coach who would have done otherwise is doing a disservice to his team.

John E Gunter | August 17, 2006
I agree that any sport is a competition. I agree that the some of the kids take it as seriously as MLB players. What I don't agree with is the level of competition that the adults get into it.

As nasty as it was, the coach did the right thing by walking the star player and pitching to the kid Romney. If Romney's parents have such an issue with playing the game, should he really be in that league.

That comment may sound harsh, but if he is unable to compete with the rest of the kids, he shouldn't expect special treatment.

The good news is, he's going to work on his hitting. So he has learned from this experience. But like I said, the adults get way to involved in the game. Come on, the coaches almost got into a brawl because of a good sports strategy decision?

Amy Austin | August 17, 2006
Sounds to me like Romney is the only one who "gets it".

Scott Hardie | August 19, 2006
I see why Romney's parents object – they signed him up so he could feel like other kids instead of keeping him home and letting his disability dominate his life, only to have it happen on the field – but come on, one of the purposes of child sports is to teach kids about fair play, and pretending Romney isn't a weak player isn't fair to anyone, least of all Romney. To invoke Morgan Freeman again (we might as well start calling it Morgan's Law around here; we haven't coined a TC term since Hot Coffee), race should be ignored because it involves imaginary differences between us, while this kid had an actual physical difference that everyone knew about. His parents were right to put him in the field to play, the coach was right to apply sound coaching strategy by pitching to him, and Romney was right to go right back determined to play better. Who's losing out? No one. The kids who lost the game because of it A) lost the game themselves and B) learned about fair play.

Michael Paul Cote | August 22, 2006
No one bitches if a team intentionally walks David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez or any other "slugger" to get to a batter with a better chance of making an out. It only makes sense. I watched part of the Little League World Series this week, because NH has a team going strong. (Unfortunately I missed the end of the game, so I don't know who won). They have a boy that was just diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. According to the announcers on ESPN, he has become a model for other kids, showing that they too can follow their dreams. He has his monitor in the dugout if needed, and has really stepped up as a leader on the team. Youth sports are designed to build character. I agree with John about the parents, though, maybe they need more character building.
Just a note, when I played little league, there were no "mercy" rules, not every kid got to bat or even play in a game. What did that teach...that winning was the most important thing and individual feelings didn't matter worth a damn. Which I probably could have handled alot better if the coaches son didn't start every game. (And it wasn't because he was the best player.)

Aaron Shurtleff | August 22, 2006
NH won and is moving on in the tournament.

Wow. I thought I'd have to defend my position, but maybe I'm in the majority after all.