After taking a few years off from coaching baseball after moving, I agreed to take a rec ball 15U (Juniors) Babe Ruth team on about 30 minutes notice early in February here in my new town. I had not attended assessments and had little idea about the players available in the draft. The league passed a rule prior to the season which allowed teams to keep their rosters entirely intact from the Fall '22 season unless the player opted out. So the draft was me filling an empty expansion team roster and a dozen or so total picks from the other seven teams. I got some draft assistance from the division commissioner and one of the managers who was not drafting because he was bringing back his entire Fall '22 roster. Generally they steered me in the right direction but the skill sets were extremely lacking after about the 5th round. In a 13 player roster (as of draft day) I have three who cannot field or hit and three others who are extremely challenged either hitting or fielding. I'm talking can't catch a fly ball and can't hit the pitching. As a team we are not competitive. A week plus after the draft, I was assigned a late sign-up kid for a total 14 player roster, yet another weak player. When I questioned the commissioner he told me all the other teams already had 14 so the player went to me. For the record, I don't buy this for a minute. I have not seen an opponent, in the games I have played thus far, have 14 kids in their dugout other than me.
Fast forward to this past weekend. Apparently it's a tradition in this league to conduct an early season tournament among the teams. They did a random draw to schedule match-ups in Saturday pool play, two games per team on Saturday. The results would determine seeding for Sunday, 1 seed plays 8 seed, 2 plays 7, etc. Home team is the higher seed. Take note this past weekend was the first weekend of school Spring Break locally. Most teams were missing multiple players whose families had vacation plans. I was missing both my number one and number two draft picks and the number one pick is by far my best pitcher. This significantly weakened my already non-competitive team. The league also added pitch count restrictions for the the tournament not normally used in league play. These rules required 1 day of rest after 45 pitches - net effect can't pitch on Sunday if any pitcher throws over 45 between two games. They also added mercy rules which were 12 after three innings, 10 after five innings and another I don't recall. So I was working with three inexperienced pitchers who barely knew the rules associated with stretch position with runners on base.
Short version, the team never made it out of the third inning in any of the three games and scored zero runs.
In the first game, against the team managed by the division commissioner, in the first inning they had scored at least four runs on an essentially defenseless opponent and had no outs. My pitcher reaches his pitch limit when he walked his third or fourth batter of the inning with a runner on 3B. I started the walk toward the mound to replace him and requested time out. The umpire raised his hand pointing to the batter who was walking to first base. No problem I thought, he needs to reach 1B before i can be granted time. The ball is in my pitcher's hand.
The first base coach sent the player who walked to 2B while my pitcher was walking off the mound toward me to give me the ball. Umpire refused to send him back. Legal? Yes. Chicken shit move by the 1B coach? IMO, definitely. 13-0 final. They were the home team and batted only two half innings.
Second game, opponent up by 10-0 or 11-0 with one out in the second inning. They continued to steal, run on passed ball/WP, steal 2B in a first and third situation, etc. I barked something to the 3B coach and he ignored me. Final 16-0.
Game 3 same thing. Opponent scored 10 runs in the first inning and continued run up the score. My pitcher who was incapable of keeping a runner close, would be set in his stretch position and the runner on base would start jogging to the next base before he even delivered. Bottom of the second inning they got to 13-0 with two outs. After another score on a passed ball/WP I barked at the 3B coach who was also the manager, "13 not enough?"
Next pitch and yet another player scores on a PB/WP. I said, "So 14 was not enough either?" Another runner scores. "Enough is enough," I yelled at him. Finally the 3B coach instructed the runner on 3B who was a third of the way off the bag toward home to stay where you are. The runner allowed himself to be tagged out for the third out. I said the the 3B coach, "Thanks for doing that albeit too little too late." We went down 1-2-3 in the top of the 3rd. Game over, 15-0 final score.
I was and still am pissed off at these behaviors in all three games. I don't expect them to quit competing but there is no need to take the extra shit, steal bases, and score on PB/WP once you're up 10-0 with no outs against a clearly inferior opponent.
Am I the fool here? I would never, ever do the same thing to a team I was slaughtering after one inning. I believe it sets the wrong example for the kids and demonstrates the poorest of poor sportsmanship. It's rec ball not the World Series.
I'm curious what other coaches, baseball and other sports think about this.
Fast forward to this past weekend. Apparently it's a tradition in this league to conduct an early season tournament among the teams. They did a random draw to schedule match-ups in Saturday pool play, two games per team on Saturday. The results would determine seeding for Sunday, 1 seed plays 8 seed, 2 plays 7, etc. Home team is the higher seed. Take note this past weekend was the first weekend of school Spring Break locally. Most teams were missing multiple players whose families had vacation plans. I was missing both my number one and number two draft picks and the number one pick is by far my best pitcher. This significantly weakened my already non-competitive team. The league also added pitch count restrictions for the the tournament not normally used in league play. These rules required 1 day of rest after 45 pitches - net effect can't pitch on Sunday if any pitcher throws over 45 between two games. They also added mercy rules which were 12 after three innings, 10 after five innings and another I don't recall. So I was working with three inexperienced pitchers who barely knew the rules associated with stretch position with runners on base.
Short version, the team never made it out of the third inning in any of the three games and scored zero runs.
In the first game, against the team managed by the division commissioner, in the first inning they had scored at least four runs on an essentially defenseless opponent and had no outs. My pitcher reaches his pitch limit when he walked his third or fourth batter of the inning with a runner on 3B. I started the walk toward the mound to replace him and requested time out. The umpire raised his hand pointing to the batter who was walking to first base. No problem I thought, he needs to reach 1B before i can be granted time. The ball is in my pitcher's hand.
The first base coach sent the player who walked to 2B while my pitcher was walking off the mound toward me to give me the ball. Umpire refused to send him back. Legal? Yes. Chicken shit move by the 1B coach? IMO, definitely. 13-0 final. They were the home team and batted only two half innings.
Second game, opponent up by 10-0 or 11-0 with one out in the second inning. They continued to steal, run on passed ball/WP, steal 2B in a first and third situation, etc. I barked something to the 3B coach and he ignored me. Final 16-0.
Game 3 same thing. Opponent scored 10 runs in the first inning and continued run up the score. My pitcher who was incapable of keeping a runner close, would be set in his stretch position and the runner on base would start jogging to the next base before he even delivered. Bottom of the second inning they got to 13-0 with two outs. After another score on a passed ball/WP I barked at the 3B coach who was also the manager, "13 not enough?"
Next pitch and yet another player scores on a PB/WP. I said, "So 14 was not enough either?" Another runner scores. "Enough is enough," I yelled at him. Finally the 3B coach instructed the runner on 3B who was a third of the way off the bag toward home to stay where you are. The runner allowed himself to be tagged out for the third out. I said the the 3B coach, "Thanks for doing that albeit too little too late." We went down 1-2-3 in the top of the 3rd. Game over, 15-0 final score.
I was and still am pissed off at these behaviors in all three games. I don't expect them to quit competing but there is no need to take the extra shit, steal bases, and score on PB/WP once you're up 10-0 with no outs against a clearly inferior opponent.
Am I the fool here? I would never, ever do the same thing to a team I was slaughtering after one inning. I believe it sets the wrong example for the kids and demonstrates the poorest of poor sportsmanship. It's rec ball not the World Series.
I'm curious what other coaches, baseball and other sports think about this.