From the let’s-all-be-good-sports department there is this article about a coach for a 9-10 year old baseball team walking a good hitter so a cancer survivor could come to bat. The coach is under fire for allegedly ‘picking’ on this cancer survivor kid.
The kid’s father put it like this
“It made me sick,” says Romney’s dad, Marlo Oaks. “It’s going after the weakest chick in the flock.”
Now, other than the fact that the kid’s dad called him a ‘chick’, I don’t understand the problem here. They didn’t ‘go after’ anyone. It’s a championship baseball game. The coach used valid baseball strategy to walk the better hitter and bring the worse one up to bat. Doing anything different would have been a disservice to his team. Personally, I would have done the exact same thing.
There is a valuable lesson to be learned here for Romney Oaks, and the rest of us. The only way we can be winners all the time is if we rely on someone else’s pity. How terrible would it have been if the Sox had won that game soley because a coach felt sorry for Romney? How lucky was Romney to have an opportunity to win that championship game?
This young cancer survivor may have sobbed himself to sleep that night, but I’m guessing he wasn’t alone. I’ve been a 9 year old boy and losing a game like that probably caused lots of tears in pillows that night. Romney and his teamates weren’t discriminated against, abused or even treated poorly. They went into that game as competitors, played their best game and lost fairly. Rather than crying about the coach’s call Romney’s father should be teaching his son how to get back up and compete again. Life is full of dissapointment, it’s the individuals that can face their failures and try again that are the heros in life.
What is said about the story is the fact that “strategy” only came into play when the “championship” was on the line. NO ONE had been intentionally walked in the entire league THE ENTIRE season. So why now? No it was not against the rules of the game, it was however against the rules of good sportsmanship. Why not let your pitcher face a good hitter? Win the thing straight up – JUST LIKE YOU HAD ALL season. The coach sold out for the easy win. Good strategy perhaps, but very poor sportsmanship.
As was reported on ESPN, Romney’s father did put his arm around him and told him he did need to compete and that he had beat the toughest opponent of all in cancer. He told him to practice and that next year they could pitch around him. In fact, also on ESPN they reported that the Oaks family was not even aware this was a controversy unil the media – both local and national brought it to their attention.
What is said about the story is the fact that “strategy” only came into play when the “championship” was on the line. NO ONE had been intentionally walked in the entire league THE ENTIRE season. So why now? No it was not against the rules of the game, it was however against the rules of good sportsmanship. Why not let your pitcher face a good hitter? Win the thing straight up – JUST LIKE YOU HAD ALL season. The coach sold out for the easy win. Good strategy perhaps, but very poor sportsmanship.
As was reported on ESPN, Romney’s father did put his arm around him and told him he did need to compete and that he had beat the toughest opponent of all in cancer. He told him to practice and that next year they could pitch around him. In fact, also on ESPN they reported that the Oaks family was not even aware this was a controversy unil the media – both local and national brought it to their attention.
OK, well for one thing, an intentional walk is not a strategy that is used in a normal situation. Why would you intentionally walk a batter, giving the next at bat that much greater a chance to score, unless you were in a high stakes (championship) game. It takes a unique set of circumstances to make the intentional walk a viable strategy and even then it can be risky. Why not let your pitcher face a good hitter? Because it’s the championship game and you are only leading by one run in the bottom of the ninth. That’s not what I would call an ‘easy win’. The rules of ‘good sportsmanship’ are totally subjective, I’ve heard that in Japan they try to play to a draw so nobody loses face (of course this might be an urban legend).
My beef isn’t with Mr. Oaks. I’m sure they’ve been through a lot and even if he did make a big deal out of it (which you say he didn’t) it’s excusable. My irritation is much more with the media and the whole spin on the story. I was always the fat slow kid that never even got picked for the team. You never saw anybody making a big deal when the coach not being a good sport when he wouldn’t even let me play. Athletics are about competition (or at least I believe they should be). I’ve been where Romney was – I think we all have been. It’s part of life, part of growing up regardless of what ESPN thinks.
OK, well for one thing, an intentional walk is not a strategy that is used in a normal situation. Why would you intentionally walk a batter, giving the next at bat that much greater a chance to score, unless you were in a high stakes (championship) game. It takes a unique set of circumstances to make the intentional walk a viable strategy and even then it can be risky. Why not let your pitcher face a good hitter? Because it’s the championship game and you are only leading by one run in the bottom of the ninth. That’s not what I would call an ‘easy win’. The rules of ‘good sportsmanship’ are totally subjective, I’ve heard that in Japan they try to play to a draw so nobody loses face (of course this might be an urban legend).
My beef isn’t with Mr. Oaks. I’m sure they’ve been through a lot and even if he did make a big deal out of it (which you say he didn’t) it’s excusable. My irritation is much more with the media and the whole spin on the story. I was always the fat slow kid that never even got picked for the team. You never saw anybody making a big deal when the coach not being a good sport when he wouldn’t even let me play. Athletics are about competition (or at least I believe they should be). I’ve been where Romney was – I think we all have been. It’s part of life, part of growing up regardless of what ESPN thinks.