[Vision2020] You Make the Call

[Deacon James]

Chris,

What's the point of having a championship game, then? Why not just slap all
the kids on the back at the end of the season and buy them a pile of ice
cream cones? That way, no one's a loser, the coach doesn't have to be
perceived as a jerk, and, hey, ice cream cones all around. It's a
win-win-win situation, don't you think?

Deacon

On 8/11/06, Chris Storhok <cstorhok at co.fairbanks.ak.us> wrote:
>
> Tom,
> This is an easy one A) Pitch to the slugger. Period...
>
> One of the great joys about being a youth sports coach is working with
> the kids and watching them mature before your eyes.  These coaches are
> playing with kids and there is nothing worse than watching coaches
> manipulate the kids or the rules for a simple win.  These are 9 and 10
> year olds for goodness sake, not high school age kids trying for college
> scholarships.  A vast majority of the kids out there will drop out of
> organized baseball (and other sports) within the next few years of their
> lives.  PONY league was established nationwide with the goal of putting
> fun back into the game.  This kind of crap happens in Little League all
> the time and is why Little League is losing players ever year.  We first
> started playing PONY League the year we moved to Fairbanks.  That was
> also the first year of PONY League here because parents were sick and
> tired of Little League and the competitive pressures on each and every
> team.  The PONY League organization does have a competitive league for
> kids that draw out the better talent and leave the recreation teams
> pretty equal.  Here in Fairbanks, the PONY League has brought back to
> the game hundreds of players who had left the game.  Last year the
> Senior League (13-14 year olds) had only 4 teams, this year they were up
> to 11 teams.  Granted most of these players were not good, but they had
> a good time and learned a lot about baseball and life.  I can clearly
> see that the Yankees coaches in Utah have forgotten the spirit of
> recreation PONY League, if he wanted to coach that way he should be in
> Little League or a competitive team with the PONY organization.  What a
> jerk, I know I would have been giving him a hard time as well.  (At
> least the poor kid who struck out to end the game sounds like he will be
> back, good for him)
>
> Chris
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com
> [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Tom Hansen
> Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 10:55 AM
> To: Joan Opyr; 'Moscow Vision 2020'
> Subject: [Vision2020] You Make the Call
>
> >From this week's "Life of Reilly" column by Rick Reilly of the Sports
> Illustrated -
>
> Once you have completed reading the article, please respond to the
> one-question survey I have posted at the end.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> You make the call
> Is it good baseball strategy or a weak attempt to win?
> By Rick Reilly
>
> 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?
>
> Wait! Before you answer.... This is a league where everybody gets to
> bat,
> there's a four-runs-per-inning max, and no stealing until the ball
> crosses
> the plate. On the other hand, the stands are packed and it is the title
> game.
>
> So ... do you pitch to the star or do you lay it all on the kid who's
> been
> through hell already?
>
> Yanks coach Bob Farley decided to walk the star.
>
> Parents booed. The umpire, Mike Wright, thought to himself, Low-ball
> move.
> In the stands, Romney's eight-year-old sister cried. "They're picking on
> Romney!" she said. Romney struck out. The Yanks celebrated. The Sox
> moaned.
> The two coaching staffs nearly brawled.
>
> And Romney? He sobbed himself to sleep that night.
>
> "It made me sick," says Romney's dad, Marlo Oaks. "It's going after the
> weakest chick in the flock."
>
> Farley and his assistant coach, Shaun Farr, who recommended the walk,
> say
> they didn't know Romney was a cancer survivor. "And even if I had,"
> insists
> Farr, "I'd have done the same thing. It's just good baseball strategy."
>
> Romney's mom, Elaine, thinks Farr knew. "Romney's cancer was in the
> paper
> when he met with President Bush," she says. That was thanks to the
> Make-A-Wish people. "And [Farr] coached Romney in basketball. I tell all
> his
> coaches about his condition."
>
> She has to. Because of his radiation treatments, Romney's body may not
> produce enough of a stress-responding hormone if he is seriously
> injured, so
> he has to quickly get a cortisone shot or it could be life-threatening.
> That's why he wears a helmet even in centerfield. Farr didn't notice?
>
> The sports editor for the local Davis Clipper, Ben De Voe, ripped the
> Yankees' decision. "Hopefully these coaches enjoy the trophy on their
> mantle," De Voe wrote, "right next to their dunce caps."
>
> Well, that turned Bountiful into Rancorful. The town was split -- with
> some
> people calling for De Voe's firing and describing Farr and Farley as
> "great
> men," while others called the coaches "pathetic human beings." They
> "should
> be tarred and feathered," one man wrote to De Voe. Blogs and letters
> pages
> howled. A state house candidate called it "shameful."
>
> What the Yankees' coaches did was within the rules. But is it right to
> put
> winning over compassion? For that matter, does a kid who yearns to be
> treated like everybody else want compassion?
>
> "What about the boy who is dyslexic -- should he get special treatment?"
> Blaine and Kris Smith wrote to the Clipper. "The boy who wears glasses
> --
> should he never be struck out? ... NO! They should all play by the rules
> of
> the game."
>
> The Yankees' coaches insisted that the Sox coach would've done the same
> thing. "Not only wouldn't I have," says Sox coach Keith Gulbransen, "I
> didn't. When their best hitter came up, I pitched to him. I especially
> wouldn't have done it to Romney."
>
> Farr thinks the Sox coach is a hypocrite. He points out that all coaches
> put
> their worst fielder in right field and try to steal on the weakest
> catchers.
> "Isn't that strategy?" he asks. "Isn't that trying to win? Do we let the
> kid
> feel like he's a winner by having the whole league play easy on him?
> This
> isn't the Special Olympics. He's not retarded."
>
> Me? I think what the Yanks did stinks. Strategy is fine against major
> leaguers, but not against a little kid with a tube in his head. Just
> good
> baseball strategy? This isn't the pros. This is: Everybody bats,
> one-hour
> games. That means it's about fun. Period.
>
> What the Yankees' coaches did was make it about them, not the kids. It
> became their medal to pin on their pecs and show off at their barbecues.
> And
> if a fragile kid got stomped on the way, well, that's baseball. We see
> it
> all over the country -- the over-caffeinated coach who watches too much
> SportsCenter and needs to win far more than the kids, who will forget
> about
> it two Dove bars later.
>
> By the way, the next morning, Romney woke up and decided to do something
> about what happened to him.
>
> "I'm going to work on my batting," he told his dad. "Then maybe someday
> I'll
> be the one they walk."
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> Simple Survey:
>
> Would you -
>
> A)  Pitch to the slugger (Jordan)
>
> B)  Walk the slugger
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of
> arriving
> safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
> sideways, chocolate in one hand, a drink in the other, body thoroughly
> used
> up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO. What a ride!'"
>
>
>
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