I love this ...
We were trying to talk the other day about decency and sportsmanship (we might have chosen a better example than Michael Moore, but hey, we take our blog inspiration where it comes), and a brilliant reader named Jeff left this comment, which I thought deserved full attention.
I'm around your age, when I was a kid, I was a good baseball player in a small town that took baseball seriously. I was the sort of kid who always made the all star team, but rarely got to actually play in the all star games (now that I think about it, sort of like the Royals representative).
Well, when I was 10, I made the all star team again, and the coach was the only really good coach in the league. He apparently took a shine to my particular brand of tiny person hustle and defense, so I got to start at 2b and bat 8th or 9th. This coach was a good human being by all accounts...the sort of coach who didn't put up with bullying and offered many words of encouragement, I still admire him. But one game, I was at bat (nervous as all hell) with runners on in a tight game, and a pitch came right at me...I fell/jumped/ducked/evaded. The umpire said "take your base" but I turned to him and said "the ball didn't hit me." The umpire ruled it was a ball and I had to step back into the box (I ended up walking).
Later, after the game, the coach sat me down and lectured me about how wrong I was to tell the umpire the ball didn't hit me. I spoke to my parents about this, and my mother praised my honesty. My dad looked a bit dubious, but stood by my mother.
I'm a 35 year old lawyer now, and I still think about this incident often. I'm proud of what I did, and I'm proud that my parents supported me. There isn't any championship worth winning if you have to avoid your own reflection in the morning.
I asked a good friend about this ... he has a son just entering that Little League age. He's likely to coach his son's teams forever, so I asked him what he thought about this. He immediately said: "The kid's right." I think so too, but I suspect a large minority -- perhaps even a majority -- of youth coaches would have at least felt like the coach in this story. It is so bred in us as to get every edge. Then I asked my friend if he thought that he might someday feel the way the coach felt.
He said -- and I believe this is the most honest answer imaginable -- "I hope not."
22 comments:
Great story. And an important one.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling people like A-Rod, who try to knock balls out of pitcher's hands and yell garbage at infielders chasing popups, and people like Bonds, who supposedly "don't know" they're on steroids, spend a lot of time admiring their own reflections.
What's even more unfortunate is that most little leaguers don't grow up to be baseball players. Like Jeff they grow up to be lawyers. And doctors and insurance salesmen and politicians and co-workers and neighbors and moms and dads. And that little edge we're always supposed to be on the lookout for, when left unchecked, can easily grow into a monster.
As well as teaching the fundamentals of the game, Little League is the perfect time and avenue for teaching kids about honesty, integrity and sportsmanship. Parents should be personally offended that this is not always the case. The lessons kids learn in Little League should not be any different than what's taught in school.
Winning is great. But I've learned a lot more about the world and myself from losing.
Great post, Joe. Something important to think about as my son goes into fall baseball; so far, all of his coaches have been A+, but I fear it's a matter of time before we get the kind whose willing for his players to exploit edges they shouldn't.
Great post, and a great point.
One of my favorite sports to play is ultimate frisbee, and part of the reason I love it is this ideal of sportsmanship and honesty is the overarching attitude of everyone who plays the sport.
It just goes to show that it's very possible to combine integrity and competition.
Is there a connection between Jeff, at 35, making JoPo feel young ("I'm around your age"), and JoPo calling Jeff a "brilliant reader"?
Hmmmm...
I hope I'm never in the position to have to come up with an honest adjective for someone who has been so flattering to me...
I'm the scorekeeper for my son's little league team, and part of my job is to track the number of pitches each kid has thrown. There's a limit of 90 per day at that age, or 90 for any three consecutive days, and that rule exists for just one reason - to protect really good pitchers from being abused by overeager coaches who would rather wreck the kid's arm at 11-years old than throw his second- or third-best pitcher. The fact that such a rule is necessary is a pretty sad statement.
Even more sad was the fact that one team we faced this year PURPOSELY MISCOUNTED to keep their best picher in the game longer. There's usually a discrepancy between the scorekeeprs of the two teams - we don't have little clickers to count for us. But that discrepancy is usually 3-4 pitches, not A DOZEN.
There are few hallmarks of poor character more telling than a grown man's conscious decision to risk the health of a child in order to increase his chances of winning a little league game.
To play devil's advocate, I'll note that the kid nervously 'fell/jumped/ducked/evaded.' Maybe the ump was right. Maybe the ball hit his uni. Maybe it even hit him, and he didn't notice. For that matter, maybe the coach wasn't telling him to take an edge, but to respect the umps, even when you think they may be wrong.
It was a nice story, but I am not sure it reflected reality.
If that little kid had been wearing the mattress pad that Biggio and Bonds wear on their arms he wouldn't have known if the ball hit him because he wouldn't have felt it. That Little League was probably traveling at 50 mph tops. Also, if he did the Biggio method he'd just turn his body a few inches toward the catcher, absorb the pitch, and take his base. Hugh Jennings and Don Baylor would be proud.
While it is an admirable trait to always tell the truth, it is also an admirable trait to respect the call of an umpire, whether or not we believe that the made the correct call. I am 41 years old and the parent of a 10 year old boy, who plays baseball, hockey soccer and basketball. I always tell him to respect the official and do not dispute a call, no matter what. Officials, no matter how good, blow calls, sometimes it works against you, sometimes for you. In either circumstance, it is important to respect their call and not call the game for them. If they ask you if the ball hit you, that is one thing, to question thier well intentioned call, is something else. If your kid gets a gift that they dont want or need, you still teach them to tell the giver thank you and that they like the gift.
I would like to tell everyone that, as a 30 year old lawyer, competitiveness (wanting to win, dealing with winning/losing) is one of the most important traits a young person within a capitalist society can learn. This story seems to smack of the sort of "everyone's a winner" attitude that permeates youth sports that 1. neuters the people who actually care about winning, 2. teach a horrible lesson about life that being good/bad doesnt matter and winning/losing doesnt matter, and 3. remove much of the joy of playing.
I have a story of my own. When I played little league baseball every player had to play. We had a team good enough to play for the championship. Sure enough, our crappy players werent as good as their crappy players and we lost. Who was penalized in this scenario? The good players on our team who deserved the achievement they had worked hard for. Moral of the story: Those of us with more talent and determination will have to produce extra to make up for the crappy teammates. Sounds a lot like corporate america.
Scott from Minnesota -
Why do I get the sinking feeling that you have a blonde wife and 2.3 children, you drive a beemer, and have a personal mission statement on your fridge that calls for you to make full partner before the New Year and be in public office before age 35? Have fun on your relentless journey toward to the top of the mountain, while your first (and probably second) wife is sucking every penny from your bank account during the divorce proceedings, your kids are entering rehab as part of a diversion program, and party officials are begging you to resign before the inevitable indictments become public. You'll always be a winner in my book.
Scott,
I don't see how your #2 point is reflected in this story.
Lay off Scott. Guys like him usually have really hot wives who end up sleeping with guys like me.
Also, Scott, if your crappy players were so crappy that they cost your team the championship, your team didn't deserve to win the championship.
Dear Scott:
There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
Yours,
Booker T. Washington
... and from me: I'm sorry you were so weak that you couldn't pull up those poor athletes on your team. Speaking as a kid who was a pretty lousy athlete, a few words of encouragements from a teammate would have gone a long way toward giving me more confidence before getting into the batter's box.
Did your coach not know the rules of the league, that everyone had to play? It seems to me that the best team probably won, not the team with the best players on it. Sorry you're still stewing about it 20 years later.
While I certainly feel that honesty should be praised and have always felt a little funny about winning under dubious circumstances, I think this is a really tricky issue. It's one thing to ask Little Leaguers to be honest about whether or not a pitch hit them. But, do we also then have to expect a catcher to tell the umpire that, actually, that third strike they just called was a hair off the plate?
The original story was mine. One clarification, the umpire actually asked me "did the ball hit you, son?" I said "no." I didn't volunteer the information, although that was more because I didn't know what to do than some sort of altruistic world view. I never "questioned" the umpire's call. My coach told me, in no uncertain terms, that I should say "yes" to that question in the future.
Second, I'm far from brilliant.
Third, addressing Scott. I was almost always the best player on the regular season baseball team, and you won't find someone on any sports field who wants to win more than me. I also genuinely felt sorry for the kids who sucked, who played just because their dad wanted them to, or they wanted to fit in. Sure, I was frustrated when Robert struck out for the 15th consecutive time (I'm not making that up, I remember Robert who struck out in every at bat on our Senior League championship team) in the league championship, but my frustration was soon replaced by sympathy for him. Trust me, he very emphatically did not want to suck at baseball.
I'm also a libertarian and an Ayn Rand aficionado, and have been a successful lawyer for 11 years. If you think being successful at capitalism means you can't be decent to the other humans, and that you are somehoe a more worthwhile human being than them (the point of Joe's original post, I think), I'm both frustrated and sorry for you. Because you really suck at being a human being, and the rest of us are having to pick up your slack.
The last point is why I wanted to clarify what happened. I didn't volunteer the info, I was asked by the umpire. I would have never volunteered the info, mostly because I was pretty much terrified.
Jeff,
Thanks for the clarification. I umpire a lot of Little League games, and I would never want a player to contradict a call like that, especially if I saw it hit the uniform only. Of course, the more I ump, the more I realize I should not ask those questions of players, I just need to go with my gut on the call.
At the time I posted the original comment, I was more focused on the moral I took away than the actual dynamics of the play, but you are right, it is important. I answered a direct question truthfully. I remember the coach saying to me "next time the umpire asks if the ball hit you, you just say yes." The only thing I remember more vividly is the overwhelming relief at ball four.....
I have been a HS baseball coach for 25 years. The moment that bothers me the most is when we were playing a GREAT team in a preseason HS tourney and had a chance to beat them(we wound up wi a 0-0 tie in 8 innings-they won on runners reaching 3rd-tourney rules)-ok back to story-we had a runner on 1st and as the pitcher came set, our hitter steppped out, the pitcher started and stopped-Balk was called-BUT I knew that the BATTER cannot cause a balk, but couldnt bring myself to go tell the ump. I regrettted it as soon as the next pitch was thrown and do to this day. Yes it would have cost us a base and a possible chance to win, but it might have been a netter lesson to the kids. I know that THEIR coach and the umps should also know the rules, but I still regret my inaction.
Luis Venitucci
Well...
In Babe Ruth ball, once I struck out on a pitch where the catcher tipped my bat, which should have been interference and a free base. The catcher even admitted that he'd tipped my bat. But did the ump do the right thing?
Not sure if that's all that relevant, but it has been festering for 30 years now :-)
Here's my beer-league softball philosophy: if an umpire missed the call (missed the bag, trapped the ball on a catch) and asks me what happened, I'll tell him the truth.
But if an ump calls a batter out on a fly that I trapped, it isn't 'right' for me to stop the game and show up the ump by correcting his mistake. When the inning is over after a close play, sometimes the ump will come over and ask me if he made the right call. If he didn't, he certainly doesn't get mad that I didn't correct him on the spot. It's his job to decide, and mine to play. That's how the game works. Unless you want 2 hours games filled with hitters saying "Sorry blue...it was a strike; it hit the inside corner"
Just pulling your pigtails a bit Joe, and no offense meant, but I'm betting that you spend much of your day at 4-way stop signs letting half the city cross the intersection before you. Good manners are important, but a lot of times they are taken to the extreme and foul everything up.
Luis,
What section of the rules are you citing? It seems to me that if time was not granted, than the pitcher can make the pitch no matter what.
I will have to look that one up.
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