I must have pulled up the softball bracket. My mistake. Working a little this morning.
That’s just awful
- Thread starter cowbell88
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I havent read any facebook posts and dont know who the coach is or what he has/hasnt said.
If the coach is criticizing the family, and the coach chose to only invite the bare minimum required number of players, yeah then thats pretty dumb. If the coach is publicly criticizng the parents, then he wouldnt be someone I would want my kid to play for in the coming years, if I were the parents involved.
Perhaps the parents should look into coaching or being part of the organization, so they can run a team or organization how they think is best. Or if they dont know the game or dont have the time, push for others to coach. That would hopefully reduce the odds of this happening in the future since there would either be more kids on the team or the game wouldnt be scheduled on a Sunday morning(or early afternoon, for some).
No, you're just talking out of your asss.
8U softball north: 8U softball south:
There was one softball team - Lowndes Co. All-Stars, that appear to have forfeited all 3 games they played. Which means they probably didn't even show up.
He didn't criticize the family, he did worse. He used the family as an excuse to bash Dizzy Dean to cover up his own stupidity and red asss, and make himself look good.
You are so off on the family it’s ridiculous
but regardless if he’s got people talking about church and going there.. it’s not a bad thing
Naw my lil Billy is the next Nolan Ryan and he deserved that champyunship trophee
Facts are coming out. Apparently, you actually have to submit the 10-person roster no matter what, and you can play with 9. But the coach submitted a 9-man roster instead. But....the umpire also accepted it and should have let them play, because it truly was a dumb error and the Starkville team would just have to take an out, and play with less outfielders. So they would be at a disadvantage.
So it's really a dumb technicality. But the worst part of it are the two coaches leaning on this one kid going to church and telling people they don't know how it works, as the reason they got screwed. One, he could have had a bigger roster, and two, he messed up his lineup card.
So they started it and then stopped it. I wonder if they got a call from the DD home office to cancel this game because of blasphemy
Or just let it slide if he messed up the lineup card. If you can play with 9 - then redo the lineup card and roll. Don't let common sense get in the way.
Did some digging.
Coaches had to nominate players based on who would be interested in playing.
players were selected
After the process played out only 11 kids were on the team. I didn’t try to clarify if there were any others, although I did clarify that some of those selected didnt accept the invitation
1 kid had a vacation planned and it was known he would be out of town. The other went to church. Thus left them in the forfeit situation.
Coaches had to nominate players based on who would be interested in playing.
players were selected
After the process played out only 11 kids were on the team. I didn’t try to clarify if there were any others, although I did clarify that some of those selected didnt accept the invitation
1 kid had a vacation planned and it was known he would be out of town. The other went to church. Thus left them in the forfeit situation.
Of course they're gonna use the kid as the scapegoat because it sounds better than saying hey it was our bad
I agree. Just don't get mad and passive aggressively blame church and get all dramatic with this 'never in America did I think I'd see this' mantra.
But until you've dealt with this process, don't assume for a minute that the competitive stuff that went down would not have bled into this. I love how everyone is saying Choctaw County was acting all sympathetic, didn't protest and "wanted to play" - yeah right. They didn't protest because they didn't have to, and probably didn't know to do it anyway, since it was such a technicality. But had they known.....as soon as they got behind, yep....protest.
But I'm suspect of that. I doubt Dizzy Dean stopped this game for no reason. Somebody must have alerted them to it.
Yeah you weren’t there. Probably know no one associated with either team…. But let’s make the assumption that everything said was false and make the assumption that Choctaw county was just waiting to get behind to protest.
Not everything in youth sports fits your agenda that they are wrong and bad and only ran for winners
I don't blame Dizzy Dean organizers. They post all the rules far enough in advance that everyone has a chance to read and digest them, if you don't that's on you, if you do and break one of the rules then once again that's on you.
I don't know how many teams or the format for this tournament, but DD has to get all the games in and get folks headed home by a decent time. You can't be playing until 8-9-10 o'clock Sunday night and expect these folks to drive back home and go to work Monday morning, that's not going to sustain your tournament.
I don't know how many teams or the format for this tournament, but DD has to get all the games in and get folks headed home by a decent time. You can't be playing until 8-9-10 o'clock Sunday night and expect these folks to drive back home and go to work Monday morning, that's not going to sustain your tournament.
There are bad apples in every bunch. Think the majority of these people handled it very well. Sounds like a few people in the midst of it shared some stuff on social media to straight out the facts which isn’t a bad thing.
and the assumption you have made to fit your agenda remain plain stupid. You’ve unleashed on coaches, the family, and now the opposing team in ways that fit your agenda (like Choctaw was just waiting to get behind to protest, or this person will be missing a lot of church in the future) are again plain wrong and nothing but pushing an agenda… need to change your name from OG to sleepy Joe because that’s all your doing pushing agendas
I bet you $20 at least one kid touched the ball to the bag in his bare hand to get an out.. Or at least think he got one.
3000 views with 54 (and counting) comments (many lengthy). This might surpass the Greenville CC on the "saw a rant on FB" outrage meter. Of all the topics on here, I think youth baseball might light more fuses than any other, including political.
I'm not reading any of the links, but had the officials not followed the rules, then the other team (if they lost) would have complained about not following the rules.
I haven't read any Facebook posts, I don't know the family, and I've never played in the Dizzie Dean league (I was a Dixie Youth guy myself) and neither have my kids. They played in (I think) USSSA and Little League.
Anyway, outside looking in, here are my thoughts:
1. I know "rules are rules", but I've always been against rules that take the opportunity to play away from the kids. The parents (at least in my experience) are literally all there to have our kids have the opportunity to play, even if it's short handed. I've played on a team with 8 kids and so have my kids. It's obviously harder, but it can be done with some tinkering to SS, 2B, and the two outfielders. I think anytime a rule should err, it should err on the side of kids getting to play.
2. I don't know how they whittled down 18 roster spots to 9. Maybe it was unavoidable, but I feel like somewhere along the way, the coaches could have done a better job of having some informal conversations about who was going to be available at various points through the process. If the roster was kept artificially small to ensure you didn't have to bat or play more kids (again, I don't know the Dizzy Dean participation rules), then that's pretty sorry too.
3. I respect this family's dedication to going to church, but also, if you're going to put church above everything else, then you kind of have to stand by that. If you know going into it that because of your dedication to church, your child could miss a game and that could cause his team to have to forfeit and you still choose to go to church, then I respect that, but you also have to live with the consequences of that. If 'living your values' was easy, then anybody could do it.
4. The worst things about youth recreational sports are in no particular order:
The parents that take it too seriously
The coaches that take it too seriously
The associations that take themselves too seriously
I feel like somewhere along the line, we forgot this is something we did to get our kids out of the house during the summer.
Anyway, outside looking in, here are my thoughts:
1. I know "rules are rules", but I've always been against rules that take the opportunity to play away from the kids. The parents (at least in my experience) are literally all there to have our kids have the opportunity to play, even if it's short handed. I've played on a team with 8 kids and so have my kids. It's obviously harder, but it can be done with some tinkering to SS, 2B, and the two outfielders. I think anytime a rule should err, it should err on the side of kids getting to play.
2. I don't know how they whittled down 18 roster spots to 9. Maybe it was unavoidable, but I feel like somewhere along the way, the coaches could have done a better job of having some informal conversations about who was going to be available at various points through the process. If the roster was kept artificially small to ensure you didn't have to bat or play more kids (again, I don't know the Dizzy Dean participation rules), then that's pretty sorry too.
3. I respect this family's dedication to going to church, but also, if you're going to put church above everything else, then you kind of have to stand by that. If you know going into it that because of your dedication to church, your child could miss a game and that could cause his team to have to forfeit and you still choose to go to church, then I respect that, but you also have to live with the consequences of that. If 'living your values' was easy, then anybody could do it.
4. The worst things about youth recreational sports are in no particular order:
The parents that take it too seriously
The coaches that take it too seriously
The associations that take themselves too seriously
I feel like somewhere along the line, we forgot this is something we did to get our kids out of the house during the summer.
This is a great post. Vol fan here - I come in peace. But I’m also hoping to provide some context here, as I’m the head coach of the all-star team in this discussion. I relocated to this area from middle Tennessee in 2005, and Starkville is now my forever home. I love it here.
1. You nailed it. Rules matter, but in the case of the rules here, the enforcement was counterintuitive to the MS Dizzy Dean organizational mission statement. I’m not a full time baseball coach. I’m not a travel baseball coach. I’m a dad that loves baseball, that decided to take on an all-star team to give kids an extra chance to play ball this summer. Did I read the rule book? Sure. Did I have it memorized? Absolutely not. Did I think Dizzy Dean and tournament officials would help find a solution if I made a mistake in rule interpretation along the way? Absolutely! I didn’t sneak my lineup card into the umpires’ and scorekeepers’ hands halfway through the first inning. They knew I was only starting with 9 well in advance of first pitch. I received an informal apology from the VP of Dizzy Dean yesterday afternoon regarding the enforcement of this forfeit. The protocol for arriving at the forfeit should’ve been initiated via protest by our opponent (Choctaw County), but they only wanted to play the game. Great folks.
2. We had 7 teams in our recreational league this season. Starkville Parks and Rec allows UP TO 4 nominations for all-stars per team. Quick math says you have 28 nominations. However, the last place team in the league only submitted 1 nomination. So subtract 3 and make that 25 kids to choose from. Toss in another 3 kids whose families said “not this year”, and that leaves 22 players. Now let’s add in the context that Starkville has TWO 8U all-star teams. Starkville White (the state champion) and the Starkville Stars (my team, which made the final 4). Starkville White is the perceived ‘A’ team, so they selected the first 11 of the 22 available nominations. Again, doing quick math, we’re left with 11 players remaining - this is why my team has 11 kids rostered. Unfortunately, 1 of these families had a vacation scheduled and this was not reported until after selections were made, so now you’ve arrived at why I played with 10 at the state tournament.
3. I hate the church narrative (the narrative stating that a child being in church was the cause of all of this) that has stemmed from this fiasco. I did not make the viral Facebook post that’s been brought up in this thread several times. Please discern who says what carefully. That post was not made by a coach, and I hold no ill will towards the family for being where they’re called to be.
4. Couldn’t agree more.
That’s my piece. Again, I’m just a dad trying to help kids create memories. Some of the best from my childhood were at a ballpark. We were having a weekend to remember. We were Starkville’s second team, but in many cases, we were beating the best that other cities and counties had to offer. There were opportunities for the adults to make this work for the kids (both teams wanted it), but the folks in charge went with the forfeit. Luckily, the kids will move on faster than I will.
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This is another reason to be Catholic. Go on Saturday night at the Sunday vigil
I’m now enraged at Starkville Parks and Rec. They are the real villain, and the rule should be changed to require each team to submit 4 nominees and allow up to 7.
No room on Starkville White, though
im shocked something was blown way out of proportion on social media by attention starved people- SHOCKED!
That's a handy piece of information, and really makes this thing a horse of a different color. The fact that that particular guy used church as the excuse and posted it for the world to see, and was presumed to be the coach, is what started the whole firestorm.
To the un-informed that jumped to conclusions to create and support a narrative…. I does paint it a different color.
Sleepy Joe….
you sure it’s not about wins and losses goat? Sure that Choctaw wasn’t waiting to protesr
After they were behind? Sure this coach only cared about winning that’s why he only selected 11 kids?
17ing moron
@Vol.I.Am
Appreciate your post. This particular idiot we have on this board that posts crap like this needed to hear it. Hopefully your post again opened his eyes that not all youth sports are bad
Seems like they could have asked the opposing coach if he would allow the game to continue. The other team should be disappointed too. Nobody wins in a forfeit.
Go watch a 8u game. Teams have 11 kids on it and at least 2 wont even know how the game even works. 2 more wont show up to games or show up late.
id actually argue the opposite. keep the nominations the same but have 1 team of 15. That way this situation never happens. Seems like they were scraping the bottom to field two teams anyway. And the kids on the Starkville A team could learn to be rotated around and in and out of games… likely would have still won the tournament.
That would suck to have 15 on a team that gets less AB. I think 11 is a good number to have so everyone has ample opportunity to play.
As a Vol fan - did your team wear a pimp coat after hitting an inside the park "homerun" with 3 errors?
It’s all stars and obviously by what happened they didn’t have enough for 2 teams.. seeing one forfeited. Sure it sucks for kids to not play every inning of every game… but they could learn a lesson on team work.… they could also learn that everyone does make all-stars
You’re big mad at the wrong person. The Facebook parent was the one who screwed up.
Do you really how badly you were owned in this thread. You’d think you’d learn to STFU by now.
That’s what should have happened. But you know if it did, you know one of the other coaches would be screaming to high heaven about the injustice & how his team was cheated in this very important tournament that will impact these kids for their whole lives.
2 all star teams pulled from 7 rec teams definitely explains why the 2nd team only has 11 kids. The white team is your all star team. The other team is more like an also-star team. Not bagging on the kids, but I see why the participation is lower on the B team. You are filling it (or at least trying to) with kids that may not be as committed or have other activities that supercede baseball. You also have kids that likely won't care that they are selected because they know they're not going to be as good/talented as the "A" team.
The city/league should probably stick with one all star team per 5-6 league teams. Or have the coaches take turns drafting the teams to balance the players. Once you get down to the 4th-5th best player on an 8u rec team, we might be talking about the kid that lost his hat in the first week and has been playing in a Camp Cretaceous boonie hat all season.
Certainly glad this coach isn't the one that limited his roster, the league did that to him and it's a shame. But at the same time, he's a Vols fan and probably deserves a solid case of pink eye or the norovirus.
