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[Chris20]

It's not a slippery slope. The analogies about pull hitters and shifting, etc. are ridiculous. The kid is DISABLED. The fact that he is on the team shows that his particular town, at least, is NOT all about wins and losses at that level. He is 10 years old and disabled. It's Little league - they have rules about how everyone has to play a certain amount of time...that's clear evidence that Little League itself is not all about wins and losses.

Horrible job by that coach. If I'm the pitcher that had to walk the stud to get to the disabled kid, I am pissed off and embarassed.

[Used to be VOR]

Both reasonable responses, and I don't disagree with either of you.

I do think, for me, that is it is just purely a "instructional" or "recreational" league then why have playoffs? I think once you create that sort of "one and your done" setting you invite a higher level of competition.

If the league just wants to get kids game experience play your schedule (as many games as you can) and then just have the season end without playoffs. To me, at that point, you are creating a setting where winning is the issue, and to me you cannot blame coaches for doing things within the rules to win.
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Turns out, just because you write your name on a baby doesn't mean you get to keep it."

[Used to be VOR]

[Chris20]

VOR, you are right....they are fostering a more competitive atmosphere with playoffs. Obviously, they believe their rules of participation offset it. In this case, the coach did something within Little League rules.....and something that goes against common sense and decency.

I guarantee the kids who won are happy they won....but feel a little shitty about the way it happened.

[Chris20]

[Chris20]

[Used to be VOR]

I never disputed that the opposing coach knew a weak player was on deck. I just imply disputed the term disabled. And I think the kid would dispute you as well.
_________________
Turns out, just because you write your name on a baby doesn't mean you get to keep it."

[Chris20]

Didn't realize the level of insight you had into this kids head....sorry.

[Crank]

If he's unable to play contact sports due to his condition, I'd say that constitutes disabled. Just because the kid might not classify himself as disabled doesn't make it not so; many challenged children (and adults for that matter) don't consider themselves "disabled" dispite their specific conditions. Much of that attitude is a coping mechanism and a refelction of their desire to be viewed as "normal", but it certainly doesn't change the facts.

To me, the most telling part of the story is the opposing coach's assertion that he didn't know of this child's condition, yet he had coached him in the past. He damn well knew exactly what and who he was dealing with and chose his "strategy" accordingly, then once the contoversy ensued, denied he knew about him; that to me sounds like a guilty conscience.

Sorry to beat this to death, but it struck a nerve with me as the parent of a special needs child. These kids have enough hurdles to jump on a daily basis without some failed Joe Torre wanna-be intentionally adding to it.

[Used to be VOR]

[Crank]

I'd submit that for a 10 year old boy, contact sports ARE normal day to day activities.

[Jeff93]

Sports is not about parity, it is about winning and losing. If we keep wasting all this time trying to level the playing field and making sure the lesser performers don't feel bad, then sports become ballet or some other activity. It gets to the point where there is no score, the "winner" is just whoever feels better about themselves at the end of the day.

You have to take these 9 and 10 year olds and fast forward 15 years. We are starting to see (at least I am in my position) this victim mentality creep into the workplace. People, particularly the 22-27 group, seem to think that accommodations will be made for their weaknesses as opposed to them having to work to overcome their weaknesses.

One example: We had a young woman working on a project who was floored when she realized she had to take her work and present it at a client meeting in front of about 100 people.

She basically said "I can't do that. I am not good at public speaking. I just figured someone else would present my work." She got fired. No one put their arms around her shoulder, consoled her, told her it would be okay or any of this other crap. She is out of work and moved back in with her parents who will undoubtedly continue to coddle her indefinitely as this scenario plays itself out over and over again.

So we - parents, friends, schools, society - have done this woman a huge favor by protecting her ego from failure by avoiding placing her in situations where she had to overcome or at least acknowledge her weaknesses, right? Yeah, right. This person doesn't know how to succeed in the workplace, and she is far from alone. This is one of about a half dozen examples I could give you just from my first-hand experience.

Don't let yourself be fooled, we are raising generations of people with this mindset, and it will be devastating to our workforce in America. We talk a lot about how sports and other activities have such a positive influence on kids, but the reality is, they teach us how to compete and how to succeed.

Ronney has no future in baseball. Get past it. He might turn out to be a fabulous golfer, or chef, or writer or consultant or whatever. Hopefully he moves on and realizes where his true strengths lie, and he pursues those with as much passion as the folks in Bountiful, UT are pursuing this "story."

[Quann]

Whether the kid coming up after the stud hitter was a cancer patient or not really doesn't matter to me. It 's just kind of sad that coaches are intentionally walking 9 year olds. I remember it happening when I was 9, and I even thought it was stupid then.

[Crank]

Jeff, If you'd read this entire thread (or at least my numerous (sorry!)posts on this), I have said more than once that I have NO PROBLEM with them declaring a winner and loser. I wholeheattedly agree that the whole "we don't keep score" crap these days is out of hand...hell, most of the kids know who won and lost regardless of whether an official score is kept.

My only point is I think it exhibits a tremendous lack of class and sportmanship to INTENTIONALLY go after a child known to be sick/disabled/whatever you choose to call him. If in the normal course of the game it came down to him in the win or lose situation and he still ultimately failed, that's fine by me.

[Chris20]