Dirty play

During a 14u tournament on Sunday the 15 th in Huntersville, NC, we were watching a game and witnessed a girl intentionally take the catcher out. The catcher was waiting on her with the ball in her glove when she got to her she dropped her shoulder and knocked her down and she rolled over unconscious. She was at least six steps from the catcher when she got the ball, so she had plenty of time tostop, slide or try to evade she did not even attempt to do any of these. The team then continued to cheer that she done a good job. She was proud of doing it and so were the parents and coaches. The umps immediately ejected her but it took the director about 40 mins to make her leave. The catchers coach told his girls to get off the field because they were leaving and not playing with teams that would do that. Then that team got called losers because there coach stood up for his girls. That team is the winner. It is a shame that a parent and/or coach would continually let there players do that. That is something they are being taught and that team condones it, it's ridiculous. This team did the same thing to us last year. And from the comments it sounds like they do it a lot. So since they seem to still be doing it, I guess Top Gun condones it too. Pray for the catcher that she was not seriously hurt.

 

Some people are too stupid to understand the value of sports!

 

Heartbreakers from around concord/Charlotte area

 

This the type of play is being seriously looked at the collegiate level and needs to trickle down to the youth level. My feeling is that not only should the player be ejected it should carry atleast one more game, and the head coach should be ejected for the game in progress, its the only way it will stop. Tournament directors need to make sure coaches understand this prior to beginning play.

 

We had this happen to us playing NSA, play at home, catcher had the ball waiting on her, catcher took a knee to the colar bone, she blacked out, sending her to the hospital they did nothing to the team, the girl was not even ejected, therefore we do play NSA anymore! But our girl was OK, thank God! They need to get serious on these girls that play like this, and suspend teams that are known for this. 1st and foremost the safetly of the girls should come 1st. We teach our girls no matter what, they have to slide into home, even if the ball is no where close, protects everyone!

 

On Saturday during a college game, an umpire called a player out who was sliding around the catcher in an attempt to avoid her while the catcher was chasing the ball that was over thrown. The umpire said that it was because she dropped her shoulder. Her left shoulder dropped because she was reaching with her left hand while sliding into home.

Shortly after that he ejected a player who he said dropped her shoulder while rounding first base. There was no play as the ball was missed by the second baseman, and the first baseman was not covering first base.

There was no reason for either call, so I guess maybe this umpire was going overboard with the drop shoulder thing.

 

According to their website they play under the NFHS ruleset with a few exceptions. The exceptions do not include playing rules only pitching limits, courtesy runners and safety equipment. They go as far as including all infielders must wear mouthpieces.

The correct ruling should be runner is out and ejected, if she does not comply in one minute then the team would forfeit.
The catcher would be finished for the day unless qualified health care personnel released her to play in writing.

It sounds like the officials made a correct ruling, but should have made the team forfeit for the runner not complying to the terms of an ejection.

BTW - NFHS also considers tags with excessive force to be malicious contact.

 

Some of these coaches amaze me. We were at the same tournament in Huntersville. We played a team who's 3rd base coach had runners on first and second when the next batter popped up to the shortstop. He hollers out to his runner on second " you should have run over her (shotstop) and we would have got an obstruction call, the baseline is yours". No you idiot, you would have gotten an out because the baseline belongs to the fielder when she is making a play on the ball. The same coach tells his girls to run over the 3rd baseman if she is in the base line. May be true but not very tactful. Lastly every time a ball is hit to the third baseman, he screams "run it out you never know what may happen". Again may be true but do you really need to scream in an effort to make the 3rd baseman possibly make a bad throw. Is this the way you teach your girls ? Is winning that important to you ? Reality is, 95% of these girls softball career will be over after their Senior year of High School. How about we teach a little sportsmanship that could maybe help them to be better human beings. And just so you know, his team did not win the tournament. The team that won was the team who had the umpires come up after the game and say how much they enjoyed umpiring their games all weekend because they were such good sports even when calls went against them.

 

I have been reading about the softball tournament and the "dirty play" by a 14 year old girl and wondering if I saw the same game. It's funny how these stories always have an evil perpetrator/perpetrators and a completely innocent victim or victims. The baserunner did slide into the catcher knocking her down and bowling her over. She however, hit the catcher while on her knees with her upper body leaned back not forward. I was sitting right behind home plate without a vested interest and I saw that the runner was originally called safe by the umpire because the catcher dropped the ball. It was not until the coaches and parents from the offended team ran onto the field that she was subsequently ruled out and ejected from the game. Unlike the original post I didn't really see her praised for taking out the catcher but rather I saw parents and coaches spilling out onto the field to protect her from the adult who ran toward her screaming among other things that he was a "man" and "would like to see her try that @#@% with him". There was a lot of confusion and it did take a while to sort out what was going to happen and it wasn't until a while later that she was escorted from the ball field. The coach of the offended team pulled his team off the field after making a few threats of his own and this is why there was no forfeit for the girl not leaving immediately. Her coaches got her into the bench area and kept her there.

As I said there are two sides to every story and often there is much blame to go around. It has not been said that when the Concord team played its next game the coach who had pulled his team off of the field moved into the bench with the team they were playing and had to be removed by the umpires. I have been around the Top Gun ball for three years and have seen the "dirty" team that "teaches this violent kind of play" on and off for all of that time and have seen no evidence of any dirty or unsportsmanlike play first hand. In fact throughout the league I have seen good and bad coaches, I have seen fundamentals taught well and poorly and in between. I can't honestly say I have seen evidence of anyone teaching malicious play.