Dear dimwit on the phone

[Inky_Wretch]

Having all-star teams for 9-10 year old Little League has to be one of the dumbest things ever.

How else are you going to determine a champion!?! Give everybody a trophy! That's SOCILISM! In 'Merica we have to have all-star teams and county championships and state championships and national championships even for TEE BALL!!!

 

[young-gun11]

When I was 5 y/o my team went to the district t-ball tourney. We beat the socks off everybody there because our coaches actually taught us how to play baseball. One of the coaches told my dad, "Y'all get people out!" To which my dad replied, "Isn't that the point?"

What I'm saying, I guess, is no matter the age, teaching the game is more important than winning until you get to HS ball. We won state and went to the World Series because we were taught the game. As a 5-yr-old, though, I had no idea what the World Series was...

 

[sgreenwell]

I think 9 and 10-year-old AS teams are okay. That's around third or fourth grade, if I'm doing the math right in my head, and by that age we were playing one-on-one hoops and what not on the school playground. That's roughly when the local Little League split kids up into Minors and Majors divisions, with minors having a pitching machine instead of pitchers, and majors you'd see the bigger kids and bunting and what not.

 

[albert77]

Youth sports coverage brings out a whole different clash of dimwit. Is it Fall yet?

Not yet, but thank the good lord above, fall sports are starting to hold practices around these parts.

On July 10?!?!?

We barely finished spring sports a month ago!

Well, the practices aren't official, but yeah, it's football season. Our preseason questionnaires were sent out a month ago and our football section goes to press Aug. 3. Prep season kicks off Aug. 16.

 

[JosephC.Myers]

Long diatribe sent from a Little League mom today, complaining that her little Johnny got left off the all-star team for the summer. It goes on to point out how supportive her wonderful son was all through their season, cheering for his teammates and so on. She also points out how all the kids should be treated the same and given the same opportunities. Basically, everyone should be an all-star.

She doesn't come out and directly ask, but the tone is "Hey reporter, you should do an investigative report on this." She does use the words "slimy underbelly" when describing the league.

Or maybe, you should just have little Johnny explore an all-comers track meet or piano lessons or Boys Scouts, etc this summer instead of obsessing about Little League conspiracies.

In our area, a kid with Asperger's played on a 9-10 baseball team all season. League rule is that every kid who shows up gets to play two innings. All goes well during the regular season. Then, with tournament play approaching, the coach decides not to tell the kid and his family when and where the team is playing, figuring they won't show and the kid won't play, and the team will have a better chance of winning.

This is 9- and 10-year-olds.

The coach (and I'm using that term loosely and in place of some other fitting terms) also told the other players and parents on his team that the kid and his family "went on vacation" and that's why he wouldn't be there.

Of course, the Asperger's kid's family got wind of it and all hell broke loose. Parents were understandably upset. They were realistic about his skill level, but didn't appreciate the coach's underhanded tactics.

League suspended the coach for the rest of the season and the ashistant coaches invited the kid to play. But he chose not to because he didn't want to be blamed if the team happened to lose.

The family and some other players and parents from the league came to the first tournament game and conducted a silent protest. Word was the suspended coach (who, of course, had no comment for our story) was supposed to show up after the game and officially apologize to the kid.

Too little, too late. The jerk already ruined the kid's baseball experience.

Wow. Wrong on a whole lot of levels right there.

 

[Mark2010]

Youth sports coverage brings out a whole different clash of dimwit. Is it Fall yet?

Not yet, but thank the good lord above, fall sports are starting to hold practices around these parts.

On July 10?!?!?

We barely finished spring sports a month ago!

Well, the practices aren't official, but yeah, it's football season. Our preseason questionnaires were sent out a month ago and our football section goes to press Aug. 3. Prep season kicks off Aug. 16.

Unless you are in Alaska, that's insane!

 

[KYSportsWriter]

Youth sports coverage brings out a whole different clash of dimwit. Is it Fall yet?

Not yet, but thank the good lord above, fall sports are starting to hold practices around these parts.

On July 10?!?!?

We barely finished spring sports a month ago!

Yep. The KHSAA-mandated dead period ended Monday.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

Having all-star teams for 9-10 year old Little League has to be one of the dumbest things ever.

How about having all-star teams for 7 and 8 year olds?

 

[txsportsscribe]

Having all-star teams for 9-10 year old Little League has to be one of the dumbest things ever.

How about having all-star teams for 7 and 8 year olds?

did they pick mvp by who sold the most candy bars?

 

[BillyT]

NOLA already has its forms up for football coaches to fill out.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I think 9 and 10-year-old AS teams are okay. That's around third or fourth grade, if I'm doing the math right in my head, and by that age we were playing one-on-one hoops and what not on the school playground. That's roughly when the local Little League split kids up into Minors and Majors divisions, with minors having a pitching machine instead of pitchers, and majors you'd see the bigger kids and bunting and what not.

When I was a teen, one of my local paper's columnists wrote a piece suggesting that instead of All-Stars, they should just have the team that won the championship represent the town in the tournaments as the fairest way. No politics. Just settle it on the field.

Caused a bit of a shipstorm, even though the columnist pointed out the fallacy of the emphasis on winning (there's still pressure on kids either way, either during the regular season or the All-Star tourneys) as well as his ripping on the concept that the league's main purpose was to cull the herd to find the 14 or so kids who were going to make the All-Star team.

 

[Mark2010]

NOLA already has its forms up for football coaches to fill out.

I don't have a problem with that, because quite often it takes a month or so to get the data collected. So an early start beats a late on, especially if you have a ton of schools to cover in your preview.

I was talking about actual practices and stories and stuff like that being published. Heck, when I was doing a major feature or enterprise piece that I knew was going to require multiple interviews, I would start as early as I could.