I coach inner city baseball at a local city park. It is run through a recreation center by the city and all rec. centers have the same program with the same set of rules. I’ve done this for over five years (when my kids were younger in the 90’s and then again the last 4 years in a row). The rules are not generated by the local rec. center but by the city’s governing body which sends the rules to all the centers.
This is not normal little league baseball. Most of the kids don’t have gloves or balls and don’t have a clue how to use them. Since this is inner city, many don’t have nuclear families and there is no one to show them how to throw or catch or hit. My job as coach is less of a strategist than a glorified dad who teaches the basics like how to hold a bat or how to throw with your shoulder instead of your elbow.
The rules then are slightly different than little league baseball. First, there is a pitching machine, not a human pitcher. Secondly you only get five pitches regardless of whether you swing or not, no walks. Thirdly, and most significantly to this story, no player can play the same position twice in the same game. This gives the kids a wide spectrum of playing possibilities and experience. No one gets “stuck” all season playing catcher or right field.
I tend to be rather anal when it comes to following rules. I use my turn signals, I come to a complete stop at corners and I seldom speed up during a pink light to beat the signal. With that said you can understand that I follow the rule of rotating the kids every inning; and from game to game. One mother told me her child wasn’t going to catch but I said, everyone will catch at least once. She gave in and saw that this was the fairest way of dealing with the kids.
I’m telling you all this background because of a recent incident I had with another coach. We generally play a four or five inning game due to time constraints. I know baseball is one of a few sports that doesn’t use a time clock and it can go on forever, but we try to limit the games to one hour. The first three innings we were getting pummeled. We were losing nine to nothing when one of my kids mentioned to me that the other team had never changed player positions for the first three innings. I went to the other coach and told him that he was exerting an unfair advantage over my team. He wildly protested but I appealed to the Rec. center director and he sided with me. The final inning they didn’t score a run and we scored eight! We didn’t win the game but when we played on the same level it radically changed the dynamics of the game.
After the game the other coach came to me and began ranting about the rule. First he claimed he had coached for three years and knew nothing of the rule. I dismissed this politely in that every year we got a packet of coaching information and the rules are clearly stated, not only that but we are given a chart to show how to rotate our players. We also have a coaches orientation each year in which this rule is brought up to remind us.
The other coach then changed his tactics by arguing that he didn’t want his children (two were playing on his team) to play catcher and that is why he ignored it. I stared at him amazed at his rationale. Because he didn’t like the rule, he felt it his obligation to ignore it. Not only ignore it, but to play ignorant when he was confronted by it. He then wanted to negotiate with me that we both not play by the rule or that we lobby to change it immediately!
I informed him that I have successfully played by this rule for more years of coaching than he has in this league. I felt no need to change it for my advantage, in fact, I had learned how to coach around it by placing my better players in key slots in the later innings when the kids started hitting better.
My point in this diatribe is that what this coach was living by and promoting is the major opinion of most people in North America. Rules are relative and are meant to be bent or ignored based on how I feel about them. This is evidenced in how people drive, when they cut in line at the store or theatre, or how they treat other people. Just this past Wed. I was almost broadsided by a woman who decided that her red light didn’t apply to her and my green light was less important, as I was deemed less important, she ran the red light while talking on her cell phone and I had to slam on my brakes and turn out of the way.
People act in the manner of “rules are for others but not for me”. I am the measure of all things and I base my behavior and practices on my needs and feelings. No wonder we have a hard time with values and morals when it comes to life in general. Since all things are relative, so is God and His values. There is no right and wrong anymore, just what I can get away with. If you challenge me, I have a right to lie and distort the facts to defend myself.
May God have mercy on us, we’ll need it when He comes to judge the living and the dead!
This is not normal little league baseball. Most of the kids don’t have gloves or balls and don’t have a clue how to use them. Since this is inner city, many don’t have nuclear families and there is no one to show them how to throw or catch or hit. My job as coach is less of a strategist than a glorified dad who teaches the basics like how to hold a bat or how to throw with your shoulder instead of your elbow.
The rules then are slightly different than little league baseball. First, there is a pitching machine, not a human pitcher. Secondly you only get five pitches regardless of whether you swing or not, no walks. Thirdly, and most significantly to this story, no player can play the same position twice in the same game. This gives the kids a wide spectrum of playing possibilities and experience. No one gets “stuck” all season playing catcher or right field.
I tend to be rather anal when it comes to following rules. I use my turn signals, I come to a complete stop at corners and I seldom speed up during a pink light to beat the signal. With that said you can understand that I follow the rule of rotating the kids every inning; and from game to game. One mother told me her child wasn’t going to catch but I said, everyone will catch at least once. She gave in and saw that this was the fairest way of dealing with the kids.
I’m telling you all this background because of a recent incident I had with another coach. We generally play a four or five inning game due to time constraints. I know baseball is one of a few sports that doesn’t use a time clock and it can go on forever, but we try to limit the games to one hour. The first three innings we were getting pummeled. We were losing nine to nothing when one of my kids mentioned to me that the other team had never changed player positions for the first three innings. I went to the other coach and told him that he was exerting an unfair advantage over my team. He wildly protested but I appealed to the Rec. center director and he sided with me. The final inning they didn’t score a run and we scored eight! We didn’t win the game but when we played on the same level it radically changed the dynamics of the game.
After the game the other coach came to me and began ranting about the rule. First he claimed he had coached for three years and knew nothing of the rule. I dismissed this politely in that every year we got a packet of coaching information and the rules are clearly stated, not only that but we are given a chart to show how to rotate our players. We also have a coaches orientation each year in which this rule is brought up to remind us.
The other coach then changed his tactics by arguing that he didn’t want his children (two were playing on his team) to play catcher and that is why he ignored it. I stared at him amazed at his rationale. Because he didn’t like the rule, he felt it his obligation to ignore it. Not only ignore it, but to play ignorant when he was confronted by it. He then wanted to negotiate with me that we both not play by the rule or that we lobby to change it immediately!
I informed him that I have successfully played by this rule for more years of coaching than he has in this league. I felt no need to change it for my advantage, in fact, I had learned how to coach around it by placing my better players in key slots in the later innings when the kids started hitting better.
My point in this diatribe is that what this coach was living by and promoting is the major opinion of most people in North America. Rules are relative and are meant to be bent or ignored based on how I feel about them. This is evidenced in how people drive, when they cut in line at the store or theatre, or how they treat other people. Just this past Wed. I was almost broadsided by a woman who decided that her red light didn’t apply to her and my green light was less important, as I was deemed less important, she ran the red light while talking on her cell phone and I had to slam on my brakes and turn out of the way.
People act in the manner of “rules are for others but not for me”. I am the measure of all things and I base my behavior and practices on my needs and feelings. No wonder we have a hard time with values and morals when it comes to life in general. Since all things are relative, so is God and His values. There is no right and wrong anymore, just what I can get away with. If you challenge me, I have a right to lie and distort the facts to defend myself.
May God have mercy on us, we’ll need it when He comes to judge the living and the dead!
