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.
