Too good for youth baseball
Back when I was in Oregon, I covered one of the top wrestling
teams in the state, and they had hands-down the top wrestler in the
160-pound weight class. He was a three-time state champion, and
he’s currently on an athletic scholarship at Oklahoma.
But what was funny, or terribly sad, was that some teams would
decide not to wrestle against him. He was arguably the top
wrestling talent Oregon had to offer, and some opponents wanted
nothing to do with him.
Too good for youth baseball
Back when I was in Oregon, I covered one of the top wrestling teams in the state, and they had hands-down the top wrestler in the 160-pound weight class. He was a three-time state champion, and he’s currently on an athletic scholarship at Oklahoma.
But what was funny, or terribly sad, was that some teams would decide not to wrestle against him. He was arguably the top wrestling talent Oregon had to offer, and some opponents wanted nothing to do with him.
When questioned, opposing coaches would deliver excuses like how they didn’t want their guy to get hurt, or how it all depended on the score of the dual match at the time as to whether or not they’d send out an opponent.
It was, more or less, a complete crock. And I couldn’t help but think of this when I read about the 9-year-old from New Haven, Conn.
Jericho Scott has been labeled too good to play baseball. With a fastball topping off at 40 mph, Scott has been told he throws too hard and too accurate by the Youth Baseball League of New Haven, which has banned Scott from pitching as a result.
According to an initial report from the Associated Press, league officials told Scott’s coach, Wilfred Vidro, that Scott wasn’t allowed to pitch after a game on Aug. 13. Scott played second base on Aug. 16, then took to the mound the following game, only to see the opposing team walk off and forfeit the contest.
Scott reportedly walked off the field in tears.
But that old American adage – If you can’t beat ’em, sue ’em! – may soon be coming into play here. I mean, lawsuits are the only thing more American than baseball, right?
The league has hired attorney Peter Noble; Scott’s parents have hired John Williams.
Concerned parents feel Scott throws too fast, striking fear into opponents as well as discouraging players from continuing the game, while others feel Scott’s being singled out after rejecting an invite to join the defending league champs, which, interestingly enough, are sponsored by an employer of the league president.
That sponsorship, as reported by the New Haven Register, is Carlito’s Barber Shop, where that league official has a haircutting chair.
I’m not making any of this up.
But seriously – and this is a question that will certainly not be answered in this column – when did we, as a people, get like this? When did we begin to even think that the only reasonable way of preventing a pitcher from doing his job was a lawsuit?
Well, that last question could be attributed to when Barry Zito became a Giant, but in terms of a 9-year-old pitcher, have we lost our collective minds?
What is interesting are the latest reports out of New Haven. In a column by the Register’s Dave Solomon, it turns out Scott’s current team was 4-0 when Scott, who plays for an all-star team in the area as well, joined the squad.
And the league said it would disband Scott’s team and divide the players among the remaining teams only after Scott pitched perhaps more than a 9-year-old should – 13 innings in three games over a five-day period.
The league is not sanctioned by Little League, and is said to be a coed developmental league, where players are still learning the game and looking to have fun.
Although my initial reaction to this story was to simply put the league in the wrong, as it turns out, it’s not as black and white as expected.
In one instance, it seems interesting that the league has apparently little to no rules on how often a pitcher can pitch, little to no rules on players joining a team in mid-season. In another, it’s interesting a coach, in a developmental league, would throw out the same pitcher again and again in order to win.
Too many times we see parents and coaches living vicariously through their children’s youth sports teams, and too many times does it end in lawsuits, or in the case of a fight that broke out between parents at a youth hockey game in Massachusetts, death.
As this story continues to develop, it seems to be getting more crazy and sordid as we go along, and the only people that seem to be in the wrong are the people that place winning above everything, even in a developmental league, where a 9-year-old pitcher has unfortunately been caught in the middle.
