Ever seen a team intentionally forfeit?

[isnt she fancy]

My older daughters team forfeited a championship game in Virginia once. It was 6 pm and if we left right away we would make it home before midnight. The girls also needed dinner as they had scrapped their way out of the losers bracket. It was a team decision and the parents were really happy about the outcome. In consideration of the post...I would totally support a coaching decision to forfeit if the girls were not interested in getting themselves together and playing. I would insist on the girls carrying all the equipment, packing the shade tents, toting the coolers back to the car and then thanking each coach and parent for bringing them to play. Especially on a team that is staffed with volunteer coaches. We all have things we could be doing. Softball is only fun to watch when the girls are trying, win or lose.

[DonnieS]

Well, I dont want to put anyone down here but I tried to intentionally forfeit on Sunday evening at the Ronald McDonald 16u this year. We had a pulled hamstring, a pulled groin, another kid had a painful rash from catching 4 straight games (my fault), one kid had been hit in the jaw and was bleeding from both sides of her tongue, another was throwing up, three kids were crying, one of the pitchers had been hit in her pitching hand, I was down to what I considered 7 healthies. I called the group together, and told them I thought we should pull out, we had too many injuries, we had two top teams in front of us, the bomber black and the sk impact, I didnt want any kids hurt so bad they couldnt heal by the start of high school season. I asked the girls what they thought, the one hit in the mouth starts jawing at me right away, blood coming out of the corners of her mouth, I told her to 'wipe the blood off her mouth before the blue sees you', one kid in the back was throwing up, she said ' I cant play ' and her mother said 'yes she can' and she said ' yea, I can.' Anyway, I got voted down, and we played and won the tournament.

[Judd]

Great story Donnie. In fall my DD wanted to extend the season so I played 3 weekends in a row just on p/u players. The toughness of these girls really showed. Not as great as yours, but I had a girl with a twisted ankle and one that got popped in the lip. We only had 9 girls and they went all the way through the IF game to win. Not to mention it was like 30 degrees when we left

After reading these posts, seems like there are some appropiate times to forfeit

[DonnieS]

>> After reading these posts, seems like there are some appropiate times to forfeit << \

I agree - once we played on a day when the high was 38 - the low was 35. Bad day - it took a long time for us (me) to recover, actually a number of girls had a hard time recovering from it as well. Keep in mind this is south texas and we wear jackets when the temp dips down into the 60's.

But on the Ronald McDonald day, I was still on pins and needles because I knew several of the girls were playing on guts alone and facing the competition that night, we needed everything to bounce our way. In that championship, the pitcher I started in that game got lined on her first pitch, its probably not that funny to some but one of my memories other than the 'concede now' talk I unsuccessfully gave, was that pitcher limping around after the liner trying to prove to me she could still pitch. She was doing a great impression of Chester on the old Gunsmoke series. My kid had just gone 7 innings against the bombers and the pitcher with the hurt finger said 'I can do it - but just dont call the screw, ' or some such pitch I forget now, ' and I can do it.' so I put her in. But I kept warming my kid up during our half of the innings in case she had to go in - but the 2nd pitcher hung tough, I know she was hurting but she gutted it out. The pitcher that started the game, the entire game while she was out on defense, kept going through the pitching motion , just showing me , hey Coach, I can go back in, you know.

Thats why I miss those kids so much and cant wait to get them back.

[coolstuff]

Oh, yeah, weather can be an issue. This didn't happen to DD but I heard about this happening in a pixie rec tournament. A team was coming up through the loser's bracket and were getting ready to start their third game in a row in 90 degree heat in the usual Indiana humidity. But according to a parent who was there the girls were "ready to die." Considering that these girls were in kindergarten and 1st grade, the parents took a vote and told the coach they were taking their girls home because it wasn't worth it.

[dittoz]

At 1st grade - NO DOUBT! It just isn't fun at that point and that's all it should be in 1st grade...

Couple years back, we were playing in a rec all-star tourney in 10u. We were traveling and playing at some school that was pretty much a dust bowl - no shade trees, no nothing other than dust covering more dust. Only bathroom was a port-o-pile beyond the CF fence that baked in the sun all day. As I recall the temp maxed that day close to 112.

In spite of the the high temp, the humidity was prob only 10%. We had a whole city of pop-ups in place and kept the girls covered in towels soaked with ice-water, consumed huge quantities of Gatorade and water and even still, there were several that had to pull out of the games as early heatstroke issues started to appear. Out of 15 girls that day, only one played every inning. The idea of forfeiting never really came in to play, but I can certainly see at the 1st grade level where you would do it !