By now, you’ve probably heard about the Pennsylvania t-ball
coach who allegedly offered one of his 8-year-old players $25 to
hit a mentally disabled teammate in the head with a baseball during
pre-game warm-ups so that the coach wouldn’t have to put him in the
June 27 game.
By now, you’ve probably heard about the Pennsylvania t-ball coach who allegedly offered one of his 8-year-old players $25 to hit a mentally disabled teammate in the head with a baseball during pre-game warm-ups so that the coach wouldn’t have to put him in the June 27 game.
On Friday, the coach, 27-year-old Mark Reed Downs of Dunbar, Pa. was charged with criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault, corruption of minors and reckless endangerment.
I also think he should have both arms cut off, but that’s just me.
Stories like these seem to just keep rolling in, these unfortunate and ridiculous incidents that are the byproduct of placing the same importance and regulations on youth sports as that of seriously competitive adult sports.
This story is totally enraging. It angers me more than any steroids story ever could. Why? Well, obviously, a mentally challenged boy was hurt while just trying to participate in a sport tons of other kids without his disability enjoy every day. That’s just sick.
But also, I’m just tired of seeing people take Little League and other youth sports way too seriously.
One Gilroy Little League team manager was the victim of this phenomenon earlier this month. His story is by no means on the same horrible scale as the t-ball story, yet is still a great example of how stupidly cutthroat Little League can be.
During a game at the 11-year-old All-Star Tournament in Santa Cruz, John Price, the manager of the Gilroy American League all-star team, was kicked out of a game – and suspended from the next – for leaving the dugout and going outside the field’s fence to retrieve a foul ball.
“I had a brain freeze. I naturally reacted to what I would normally do,” said Price, a veteran Little League coach. “You’re just reacting to what is going on in the game.”
In all fairness, Price did break a rule. The Little League rule book says coaches are not allowed to leave the field during the game. The original intent of this rule, Price said, was to keep coaches from getting “information” from people outside the park.
“It’s like the CIA,” Price joked.
And he should poke fun at this. Really, isn’t it pathetic that a rule like this has to exist in the first place?
Price understands he broke the rule. What he has a problem with is that the umpire who kicked him out of the game saw him the whole time – from the moment he left the top step of the dugout to the moment he returned to the field – and saw that Price didn’t speak to anyone.
Oh, wait. That’s not completely true. He spoke to a little boy – the only other person on the other side of the fence. Price asked him if he got anything from the concession stand for returning a foul ball. He did, so Price gave him the ball so he could get a hot dog.
Just criminal, I tell you!
One other complaint Price had was that this rule was never enforced during the regular season so he wasn’t thinking about it. And that doesn’t just go for the leaving-the-field rule. The coach said all rules are definitely tighter in the post-season during Tournament of Champions and the all-star tournaments.
I witnessed this while covering some of the all-star tournaments. A pitcher was forced to use a different glove when he took the mound mid-game because his glove was a lighter black color – too close to white, according to the ump. Other pitchers were warned about their starting motions. Heck, within minutes of arriving at the game, I was told to move further away from the fence because I was too close to the dugout.
My point is, Little League needs to stop worrying so much about all their little rules and pay more attention to filling their dugouts with folks who know and can teach what Little League is about: Having fun and teaching kids baseball, teamwork, sportsmanship and the benefits of sport.
