Posted on 08/10/2006 8:59:04 AM PDT by BaBaStooey
This actually happened. Your job is to decide whether it should have.
In a nine- and 10-year-old PONY league championship game in Bountiful, Utah, the Yankees lead the Red Sox by one run. The Sox are up in the bottom of the last inning, two outs, a runner on third. At the plate is the Sox' best hitter, a kid named Jordan. On deck is the Sox' worst hitter, a kid named Romney. He's a scrawny cancer survivor who has to take human growth hormone and has a shunt in his brain.
So, you're the coach: Do you intentionally walk the star hitter so you can face the kid who can barely swing?
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
There is a poll on the article page asking readers what they would have done in that situation.
I saw the movie. The cancer-suvivor-kid hits one over the fence to win the game.
Of course you walk him, it would not be fair to the rest of the team if you didn't play to win.
"So, you're the coach: Do you intentionally walk the star hitter so you can face the kid who can barely swing?"
I'm going to say yes. The one sick kid does not out-weigh or hold any more importance than any other kid on the team.
Not to be crude but sick kids like that tend to be the capital "I" in "team".
In high stake baseball, you walk him.
In low stakes, you pitch to him.
"So, you're the coach:"
Why put the worse hitter after the best? Kind of like putting "Mendoza" after Ortiz instead of Manny..
It's good strategy and it's a pathetic thing to do in a kids game.
Of course you do. Playing any other way would have been patronizing.
In low stakes, you pitch to him.
If you want to do the right thing in your life, you pitch to him.
Or Manny Ortiz.....
Do I have money on the game?
Precisely to try to shame the opposing coach into pitching to your star so he won't be seen as "taking advantage" of the "sick kid".
I hope like hell you feel like sh*t for posting that.
Cutting a kid with cancer some slack is all about doing the right thing.
I don't think intentional walks should be allowed in little league baseball at all. If they did intentionally walk him, then a pinch hitter should have been put in, in place of the sick kid. 2 can play at that game.
After thinking about this situation, here's my take.
The Red Sox coach decided to protect his best hitter with a weak hitting player. That makes absolutely no sense. Your #9 hitter does not bat fourth or fifth.
Therefore we can conclude that it was the Red Sox coach's goal to use Romney (the cancer patient) in an effort to prey upon the Yankees coach's feelings. The theory goes, the other team's coach won't want to walk my big strong kid and pitch to my cancer survivor kid because it will make him look like a prick. Romney was being used by his own coach. Used. Had his coach put him in the lineup where he belonged, this would have never happened to him.
The Yankees coach called his bluff. And let's face it, it was right for him to do it. It was a championship game. In a regular game or a rec league game not being played for anything, you don't have to play to win all the time, just have fun. But in a championship, you must do your job, and play to win or you are doing a disservice to your team.
Feel free to gloss over the rest of the article which contains Reilly's whiny-hearted bullcrap and feel free to pull the trigger on the proper choice in the poll question.
Why walk him? Wastes three pitches and risks a passed ball. Hit him.
Agreed. And the fact that the league has a 4 run per inning cap is also crap. If not for the cap, these games are usually a route in one direction. The leasgue is already using touchy feely BS rules to begin with. If the walk was legal, then play by the rules.
In little league baseball, in most parts of the country, you can't tell if a ball or a strike is "intentional", let alone a walk.
Throw a beanball at Jordan. Problem solved.
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