What would you do?

[MuNkY]

The story below says it all, including the question.

Per SI

You make the call
Is it good baseball strategy or a weak attempt to win?
Posted: Tuesday August 8, 2006 8:29AM; Updated: Thursday August 10, 2006 4:37PM




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?

Wait! Before you answer.... This is a league where everybody gets to bat, there's a four-runs-per-inning max, and no stealing until the ball crosses the plate. On the other hand, the stands are packed and it is the title game.

So ... do you pitch to the star or do you lay it all on the kid who's been through hell already?

Yanks coach Bob Farley decided to walk the star.

Parents booed. The umpire, Mike Wright, thought to himself, Low-ball move. In the stands, Romney's eight-year-old sister cried. "They're picking on Romney!" she said. Romney struck out. The Yanks celebrated. The Sox moaned. The two coaching staffs nearly brawled.

And Romney? He sobbed himself to sleep that night.

"It made me sick," says Romney's dad, Marlo Oaks. "It's going after the weakest chick in the flock."

Farley and his assistant coach, Shaun Farr, who recommended the walk, say they didn't know Romney was a cancer survivor. "And even if I had," insists Farr, "I'd have done the same thing. It's just good baseball strategy."

Romney's mom, Elaine, thinks Farr knew. "Romney's cancer was in the paper when he met with President Bush," she says. That was thanks to the Make-A-Wish people. "And [Farr] coached Romney in basketball. I tell all his coaches about his condition."


She has to. Because of his radiation treatments, Romney's body may not produce enough of a stress-responding hormone if he is seriously injured, so he has to quickly get a cortisone shot or it could be life-threatening. That's why he wears a helmet even in centerfield. Farr didn't notice?

The sports editor for the local Davis Clipper, Ben De Voe, ripped the Yankees' decision. "Hopefully these coaches enjoy the trophy on their mantle," De Voe wrote, "right next to their dunce caps."

Well, that turned Bountiful into Rancorful. The town was split -- with some people calling for De Voe's firing and describing Farr and Farley as "great men," while others called the coaches "pathetic human beings." They "should be tarred and feathered," one man wrote to De Voe. Blogs and letters pages howled. A state house candidate called it "shameful."

What the Yankees' coaches did was within the rules. But is it right to put winning over compassion? For that matter, does a kid who yearns to be treated like everybody else want compassion?

"What about the boy who is dyslexic -- should he get special treatment?" Blaine and Kris Smith wrote to the Clipper. "The boy who wears glasses -- should he never be struck out? ... NO! They should all play by the rules of the game."

The Yankees' coaches insisted that the Sox coach would've done the same thing. "Not only wouldn't I have," says Sox coach Keith Gulbransen, "I didn't. When their best hitter came up, I pitched to him. I especially wouldn't have done it to Romney."

Farr thinks the Sox coach is a hypocrite. He points out that all coaches put their worst fielder in rightfield and try to steal on the weakest catchers. "Isn't that strategy?" he asks. "Isn't that trying to win? Do we let the kid feel like he's a winner by having the whole league play easy on him? This isn't the Special Olympics. He's not ********."

Me? I think what the Yanks did stinks. Strategy is fine against major leaguers, but not against a little kid with a tube in his head. Just good baseball strategy? This isn't the pros. This is: Everybody bats, one-hour games. That means it's about fun. Period.

What the Yankees' coaches did was make it about them, not the kids. It became their medal to pin on their pecs and show off at their barbecues. And if a fragile kid got stomped on the way, well, that's baseball. We see it all over the country -- the overcaffeinated coach who watches too much SportsCenter and needs to win far more than the kids, who will forget about it two Dove bars later.

By the way, the next morning, Romney woke up and decided to do something about what happened to him.

"I'm going to work on my batting," he told his dad. "Then maybe someday I'll be the one they walk."

Issue date: August 14, 2006

Now, I was against the Yanks coach until I read the part where the kid told his dad he was going to work on his batting. The loss insipred the kid to work on his game. He also learned the art of losing in the process. He also learned part of baseball.

The loss probably did the kid more good than letting him just get the win would have. One story that is always brought up is how Michael Jordan was cut from his Sophmore basketball team. He learned from the loss, worked on his game, and became one of the best basketball players ever.

Who knows. Maybe that loss will make the kid the next David Ortiz or something.

 

[VolleyballQt07]

awww, poor little guy! the yanks coach is such an ask!!!!! its low to do that justg to win a little league game...............

 

[Sparx]

mike, you know how much I know about baseball, but I agree with you.

This reminded me of a question my best friend asked me. Its basically questioning the moral fiber of the person answering.

 

[Loves Disney]

That last quote is the most important sentence in that entire article. Understand that, and you'll have your answer. Needless to say, MuNkY has already hit that nail on the head.

 

[Florida_luvr924]

I think it's great that that awesome kid can be that positive after everything that has happened!!!

This story was also on MSNBC and I think they referred to the coach as "The Worst Man Ever." I don't think that intentional walking a player in a 9 and 10 year old league is really necessary, aren't the kids there to learn the fundementals of baseball anyway? So the situation could've been completely avoided if the coach had enough confidence in his team's ability to play good defense against the best hitter on the team.

 

[MuNkY]

I think it's great that that awesome kid can be that positive after everything that has happened!!!

This story was also on MSNBC and I think they referred to the coach as "The Worst Man Ever." I don't think that intentional walking a player in a 9 and 10 year old league is really necessary, aren't the kids there to learn the fundementals of baseball anyway? So the situation could've been completely avoided if the coach had enough confidence in his team's ability to play good defense against the best hitter on the team.

An intentional walk is part of the game though. If the kids want to learn the game, that's part of it.

Another thing that gets me is the Sox lineup. What kind of bonehead coach puts his worst hitter right behind his best?

 

[Loves Disney]

I think it's great that that awesome kid can be that positive after everything that has happened!!!

This story was also on MSNBC and I think they referred to the coach as "The Worst Man Ever." I don't think that intentional walking a player in a 9 and 10 year old league is really necessary, aren't the kids there to learn the fundementals of baseball anyway? So the situation could've been completely avoided if the coach had enough confidence in his team's ability to play good defense against the best hitter on the team.

You just contradicted your entire post in that one sentence. At the end of the article, the kid wants to go out and play better. Obviously that kid learned something about the game and learned the "fundementals of baseball". The kid also learned what it is to be treated as a normal, average kid. I know I wouldn't want to be treated as the "kid who survived cancer". While that is a great and incredible feat, I wouldn't want "special" attention.

However, this story would be entirely different had that last quote NOT been there. Then there wouldn't be proof of inspiration, education, and ambition.

I don't know, but it sounded to me as if that kid became inspired after that occurance and inspiration is something great, in my mind.

 

[Florida_luvr924]

You just contradicted your entire post in that one sentence. At the end of the article, the kid wants to go out and play better. Obviously that kid learned something about the game and learned the "fundementals of baseball". The kid also learned what it is to be treated as a normal, average kid. I know I wouldn't want to be treated as the "kid who survived cancer". While that is a great and incredible feat, I wouldn't want "special" attention.

However, this story would be entirely different had that last quote NOT been there. Then there wouldn't be proof of inspiration, education, and ambition.

I don't know, but it sounded to me as if that kid became inspired after that occurance and inspiration is something great, in my mind.

I don't think I contradicted my post with that statement. When I think of fundementals I think of simpler aspects of baseball such as throwing, catching, batting and good sportmanship. I'm not saying in any way that that Romney didn't learn anything about baseball that day. You're right the fact that he could draw inspiration from this situation is great.

 

[Loves Disney]

I don't think I contradicted my post with that statement. When I think of fundementals I think of simpler aspects of baseball such as throwing, catching, batting and good sportmanship. I'm not saying in any way that that Romney didn't learn anything about baseball that day. The fact that he could draw inspiration from this situation is great.

And those are rightly the fundementals of baseball. However, so is actually playing the game.

Now, through that entire article, I was against bringing the kid into the game and couldn't help but think, what a horrible thing to do. But then, you see, I read the last quote and that changed everything the article talked about.

Would you have felt differently about the situation had the quote been first? Yes, I believe you would...I believe naturally everyone would. The placement of a single word means everything...and sometimes the simpler words say the most.

Sometimes it takes reading a few words, to read many.

I am saying that because while on that field, at that time, everyone disagreed with the move. People were in a rage against what had happened...at that moment. At that moment the kid was embarrassed and felt horrible for letting the team down. However, what he gained from it was a larger, more lasting impression and that was the ambition to get better at the game. The kid didn't ultimately walk away from that day heartbroken, he walked away with a feeling of greater strength. Now to me, a lifetime of inspiration outweights a moment of embarrassment.

Then again, we can ONLY base our ideas off of that article.