Dear dimwit on the phone

Here in Mississippi, football practice starts bright and early on July 30. The season starts Aug. 17. We're only a month away from printing our tab.
Louisiana is usually a week behind us, which makes it incredibly frustrating trying to track down the one Louisiana public school in our area.

 

Just found out today that in our state - which is very, very small - we have two 9-10 all-star teams, Majors and Minors, in each town. Holy fuck. Is this like everyone gets a ribbon? Everyone gets to be an all-star?

 

How big is the league? Because that's the number that matters.
And what's wrong with having two teams? The kids play in a tournament and if they're not good enough, they lose. So what.

 

And when I played Minors and Majors were two different age groups. I only played up to minors which coaches still pitched sometimes. Majors was the next division up (the Little League World Series level). I have no issue with two all-star teams if majors and minors are separate divisions still.

 

It's simple. If everyone is an all-star, no one is an all-star.

 

No, youth baseball dad, the newspaper will not cover your crosstown rivalry game tonight. Also, please stop claiming you're the Williamsport tournament.

You may be affiliated with Little League International, but the only way your team is going to Williamsport is on vacation. The local 11/12-year-old baseball tournament ended last night, which you'd know if you actually read the story you clicked to get my e-mail address.

Submit your non-Williamsport/Portland results via the generic department e-mail just like everybody else. Maybe we'll show up when you get to states. But first, your team has to survive pool play.

 

Dear track parent,

I'm sorry we didn't run a photo of your child in our story about his team going to the AAU Olympics. Perhaps if you had e-mailed it like I asked ... or answered the phone when I called at precisely the time I said I would ... or returned that call ... then maybe we would have been able to straighten it out.

Thank you for giving us the heads up on the team, and you were right. Your son's backstory of being the third of three brothers to qualify for the Olympics was nice. It's why I made it my lede, got a nice quote from the coach and focused on it for the first 5-6 inches of the 18-inch story even though the kid is highly unlikely to sniff a medal. Consider it a token of my appreciation for giving us a story idea on the slowest sports day in modern times.

I'm sorry that means nothing to you, just because we didn't run his picture.

 

Dear Little League coach,
I asked to talk to Johnny and Jimmy because Johnny had the game-winning hit and a handful of RBIs and Jimmy came on in relief to stop a team that just scored 13 runs and allowed one uneared run the last two innings. I know Bobby hit two home runs, but for this story, I don't want to interview him. When you then tell him to come over for an interview and I tell him I don't need to talk to him, I look like an asshole. I talked to him anyway, but if you fuck me over like that again I'll give your Little League guys the High School treatment and if you lose, you will not like it.
-Rhody

 

That always sucks, but sometimes you might pull a pretty good quote. I'm sure you didn't, but sometimes it happens.

 

I talked to the kid anyway; I told the coach don't do that again because it makes me look bad, not him. I was more angry because his team led 13-0 after 3 1/2, then gave up 13 runs before scoring 9 in the sixth to win 22-14 in a game that was an hour longer than it should have been.

 

When I've covered kidball, I've always gotten the feeling the coaches are uncomfortable talking to reporters and bring the kids over as a defense mechanism. Of course, trying to pull quotes out of kids is a terrific pain.

 

I believe that at the young ages, everyone should be allowed a chance to play. Not everyone can be Pete Rose's kid. Some kids would NEVER get a chance to play if it were not for these type of leagues.

We don't need all-star teams at that young of a level. It should be about participation, not being an all-star. There will be time enough for that stuff at older levels.