Rick's Personal Blog
2002-07-10 - 6:11 p.m.
I’m still feeling a bit woozy from the Paxil. I feel… calmly anxious. I still had a very hard time sleeping last night. I lay awake until around 3:30 am. It’s still hard for me to believe that I am having this kind of a problem. Other than just being tired, I’m fine.
No.2 has 1, possibly 2 tournaments left for the season. The latter one will only happen if the coach can get enough players together. He might have to go outside the organization. That is perfectly legal to do too; as long as all the kids are the right ages.
The first team to beat us in the last tourney was a team from Springfield. At the end of the season we were tied for first in our division with them. This was an interesting team. Out of the teams we played through the season, theirs had the loudest and most obnoxious parents. Their coaches would loudly yell out the players when things were going bad, and the parents were even worse when they were doing well. But that’s baseball (I guess), but still; something just wasn’t right with that brood.
The winner of the DMBA tournament is eligible to compete for the national little league title. After we got knocked out of the tourney, it was Springfield facing Miamisburg for the championship game. I’m not sure how exactly the events unfolded, but I know that Springfield was ahead by one run, and Miamisburg was at bat. The Springfield coach goes to the mound and tells his pitcher (loud enough so that others heard) to “hit the batter”. The pitcher then proceeds to bean the batter right in the helmet.
Outraged by what had happened, the Umpire threw both the head coach and the pitcher out of the game. The Springfield parents erupted in frenzy with their own brand of outrage. Things got steadily out of hand, and the umpires had no choice except to suspend the game. This only further enraged the Springfield parents, and they demanded that since they were winning at the time of suspension that they were entitled to the trophies, and the title. Scared of what might happen if he didn’t, the president of the league, however reluctantly, awarded the trophies to Springfield. Strike One.
Throughout the season, there had been (not surprisingly) a number of complaints about the Springfield team. After the events of that night, the league president was prompted to investigate what he had let go before. Our coach was called, and asked to check old scorecards to verify what players they used during the regular season. We had played them 3 times total. We found that throughout the season they had played 17 different kids. Their roster only listed 13. Strike Two.
Add to that the fact that four of those kids where over the age of 14, and therein lays a serious problem. This league is only for kids between the ages of 12 and 13. They had falsified the birth certificates to get them in. Strike Three.
And I thought that the major leaguers were being petty. I am thoroughly disgusted.
Springfield was banned from the league. We are now the sole owners of first place.
Later,
Rick
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