Talk About Poor Sportsmanship

Very impressive! I too have coached against a team similar to which you are speaking. My story is not so great however, we were up big on team X and it was getting bad. I moved the infield to the outfield and outfield into the infield, and also switched the pitcher and catcher. The catcher had never pitched a day in her life so that was different. I also took out all coaches daughters including mine. After the walks and hit batters by mistake, they pulled to within 5 or so runs and ran out of time. I really thought we would get beat. It made for a better game to watch.

 

Something about that sentence made me LOL.

 

I thought he want to take the better players out to give the other team a chance, so why the coaches kids???
(JK)

 

Let's get all of the facts before we start the bashing!

I am an assistant coach for Northern HS. I've been coaching for 9 years and trust me, I do not believe in running up a score. Here is what really happened -

Before the game, the umpires went over the mercy rule. The Reidsville coach did not agree to the 3 inning mercy rule. He asked if we could play at least 5 innings because his main pitcher was hurt and wanted to give his 2nd pitcher more innings. Since our school is only 2 years old, we have never played this school. Our new coach said sure-

The score was 19-1 after 3 innings. Trust me, when we got a big lead - we held every hit to 1 base, no stealing, no scoring on passed balls and tried to bunt 50% of the batters. Again, since our school is new, we worked on bunting, hit and runs and various startegies for 3 innings. Our school has 3 Juniors and the rest are Sophmores and Freshmen. We are trying to teach them to be good so we must ask them to try their best for 3 innings. The game should have been over after 3 innings. If the other coach would have allowed the mercy rule......this post would not have happened.

We only have 12 girls and every sub was playing. We also did not start our #1 pitcher. We did not run the score up on purpose.

It's really a shame that our school is getting bashed by a bunch of people that have no idea of what really happened. Before you start a message like this, you should get all of the facts and both sides of the story.

I'm not a big reader of this message board, and if all of the threads turn into a bicker session like this, I doubt if I will become one.

 

Hershey

Hey TBR, the Fishman had the pleasure of meeting Hershey today, and he's straight up a cool dude. Regardless of your opinion on this thread, we've all gotta respect a new poster standing up and posting his thoughts and then accepting, with class, our ridicule.
Welcome to TBR Hershey, I know that you'll be a valuable participant.
Fish

 

We had a similar situation recently with our JV team. After batting through the order, during which they got two outs, the coaches wouldn't let the players to not take more than one base on a hit that bounced off the fence. When we got to the ninth batter again, she was told to bunt regardless, but wouldn't hold the bat in the zone while the ball went over her head or bounced on the ground. She was finally walked. The next batter was hit by a pitch. Then the third base coach told the runner on third to charge down the line at the verry beginning of the wind up. After the base umpire missed it for two pitches, the plate ump finally called her out. The score at this point was 15-0.

We put our number 3 pitcher on the mound, and retired them with a bunt popup to the pitcher, followed by two strikeouts. Time expired right after we finished batting around in the second, they had only gotten one out, the score was 21-0. We took the field so they could bat through their order. We got 4 outs in 6 batters.

For the scorebook and stats, we figure that we really never finished the second inning, so we assume that the score should be backed up to 15-0. If we hadn't run out of time, who knows what the score might have been, even with efforts to hold it down, had we gone 5 innings.

A couple of years ago, when my DD was with a middle school team, we were sometimes asked NOT to step off bases, etc. They didn't want the charity. They would rather lose 30-something to nothing.

OTOH, I remember another middle school game where the opposing coach stopped our game when the score was 19-0 in the top of the second and asked the game be stopped with that as the final score and that we allow his team to bat around. Unfortunately, our number 2 or 3 pitcher struck out the side without really trying... all 9 batters in a row.

 

off topic, but relevant!

Local rec team in a NSA tournament? Why? Oh yeah... CHA CHING!

That's ridiculous! The teams that played them should have gotten a discount.
I don't intend this to be a put down of the rec team, but if you are putting on a "competitive" tournament, you should be sure all teams can somewhat compete.

 

I teach middle school and coach softball and travel softball. I have both administered and been the recipient of beatings over the years. The team that you beat 55-0 today in middle school, may be the one who beats you 66-0 next year. We need to be adult about overmatched opponents, and try our best to work with our opposing coaches to the benefit of the kids. The terrible team that you kill may have two good players who would not have gotten the opportunity to play, if not for some coach going from the cafeteria to the gym looking for players and begging them to play. I know a coach from Shelby who can't get players to play, that does this every year on the first day of school. She usually loses most of her games, but for the one or two kids she has that are good players, it means everything. I respect her, and if I am very strong, I will show her that respect by holding runners to one base once I get ahead and starting my subs. I know when she gets her program going, it may be the other way around some day. In school ball you have to use the players in your school building, not recruits from all the good travel teams in the area.