Nasty Little Man

Size of trophy inversely proportional to size of heart

In my mid-teens, I umpired little league baseball for two seasons or so. I stopped doing it because of a summer job working at a summer camp, but I probably would have stopped, anyway. The kids were great, but the parents and coaches were awful to deal with. That was 18 years ago, and based on the stories out there, they've only gotten worse.

Which brings us to this little jewel, courtesy of Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated:

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?
(snip)
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.

Short of a dad beating a coach to death, this is about as bad as it gets. The only uplifting part of this story was this:

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."

SI is doing a poll on this, and although it's not scientific, it's awfully sad that only 60% of voters have opted to pitch to the slugger.

Here's a CNN feature on the story.

posted by Kinder Gentler Little Man @ 9:33 PM