Fork and Beans

[blackwidow]

jtat32..your post seems really angry in a sarcastic sort of way. I wonder if you have a personal investment in this coach or this team?

Are you saying that people do not have the right or the obligation to judge what they see on that video?

Are you saying that anyone who passes judgement is self-rightious?

Are you saying that because everyone has made mistakes in their past that we should be tolerant of this coaches lack of good judgement by putting his players in the position to even make this choice?

Obviously, we need to get these people out of our sport.

We actually do need to get these "leaders" out of the sport. A "leader" who would advocate this use of violence to solve such an inconsequential problem has no place guiding young women.

It's really that simple to my mind.

The last half of your post contadicts the first half of your post. If he has a personal investment in the coach, why would he advocate removing him? I think you read between the lines a little too much. Nobody is trying to take away the right of speech and judgement. Good Grief!

Sorry, I am not sure what you mean. Could you explain how the last half of my post which is a statement of opinion contradicts the questions that I asked on the first half? I am looking for the actual answers to those questions from the original poster.

[blackwidow]

@AlwaysImprove

Since you were the one of the only ones in this thread sincere enough to say that your DD would have done what the coach asked I have a hypothetical question for you. If you don't mind..

Say your DD was this catcher. And say she was verbally committed to the school of her choice.
Upon viewing the footage of this video, the coaches of her college to be decide they do not want "this type" of player coming to their program and rescind their verbal offer. Now your/her college search begins again.

What would you be thinking?
Would you blame the coach? He told her to do it.
Would you blame your DD for following the order? She followed the order.
Would you allow her to continue to play for this coach after all this?

Then based on your most recent post ..
Are you saying that coach throwing a temper tantrum as equivalent to a coach ordering his team to resort to the use of force in such a manner as shown here?

Are you implying that this sort of thing is done as routine, unless the coaches know they are being recorded?

Very interested in your response...Always Improve..I like the name.

[jtat32]

jtat32..your post seems really angry in a sarcastic sort of way. I wonder if you have a personal investment in this coach or this team?

Angry - not really, but it does irritate me when adults call out kids on a board like this. The OP said they were "a bad group of girls". That's a pretty strong statement. Even more irritating was the stupidity of extending this judgement to the girls that weren't even involved in the action and justifying it based on completely speculative evidence. Actually, now that I think about it, it does make me angry, but I'll get over it.

I have no investment in this particular team, or coach. We don't live in SoCal.

Are you saying that people do not have the right or the obligation to judge what they see on that video?

I never said anything remotely near this, but since you asked, I'll give you my opinion:

You, or anyone else, has the right to judge whatever the hell you/they want to. I also have a right to pass judgement on your/their judgement.

Neither you, nor anyone else has an obligation to judge anything. If you truly feel that it is your obligation to express your judgement on things, and it would come as no surprise to anyone on this board if you do, you may find some relief knowing that it isn't. I'm sure that there are many that wouldn't mind at all if you didn't.

Are you saying that anyone who passes judgement is self-rightious?

In a literal sense, yes, one would necessitate the other. In a more colloquial sense, also yes, judging a coach, two young women, and their teammates, as "bad" people based solely on one incident that is open to interpretation is self-righteousness at it's extreme.

Are you saying that because everyone has made mistakes in their past that we should be tolerant of this coaches lack of good judgement by putting his players in the position to even make this choice?

I'm saying what I said. Putting my two posts together, you should be able to figure out my position:

- It was not a good idea for the parents to ride the ump the way they did. If it didn't happen to occur in the context of this video, however, it's not particularly worthy of discussion.

- The ump showed up the pitcher on the call in question, IMO. Whether or not it actually was an intentional response to the heckling he was getting, or just a bad call, is anybody's guess, but it came across as intentional, and if I was the coach in this situation I probably would have interpreted it that way. Again, however, take away the context and it's not that interesting.

- I have no idea what was going through the coach's mind after that call (and is wasn't the first one), but I can tell you what would be going through mine if I was in that situation - You (the ump) are going to force her to throw a pitch that could get her hurt. If you (Blackwidow) want to argue this, I'm sure someone on this site who is associated with MG could arrange for you to come out and throw some meatballs to this MG team without a screen for protection to serve as proof of your convictions.

- While I have some understanding of the coach's mindset might have been, this was still poor judgement, and I would like to think that I would not do the same thing. That said, it wasn't the outright assault that it has been made out to be - the ump is well protected as getting hit like this is an understood hazard of the job.

How about this for a thumbnail synopsis? - there was a fair amount of tackiness displayed by a number of the parties involved. Not enough evidence for me to form an opinion about any of them, however, and why should I care? I do care that young women are getting called out by ill-informed shrews. That bothers me. It also bothers me that a coach and an org that presumably served many young women well is being called out in a way that could impair their ability to continue to serve in this capacity. If this is the only evidence against them, that seems worth defending. Other than that, it's not that big of a deal and not worth spouting my opinion on.

[AlwaysImprove]

None of the above. LIfe's journey is best enjoyed looking through the front window, not the rear.

It's tricky. But best understood from a softball analogy. If you carry that last bad at bat into your next at bat, you are likely guaranteeing follow one bad at bat with another. I would try to gather an honest assessment of the landscape and jump back to the task of seeking out opportunities. Whom made what statements, analysis, wheretofores and whathows would be left to them on the message boards that are not doing anything else with their time.

Let me give you a little bit more of a hint of one way this may turn out, in the bigger picture.

6 years ago there was a young lady in our area. She had exceptional speed. She committed to an Pac 12 team as an early Sophomore. There was this immense spat of chatter in the local softball community. Some of it excited for her, but lot of it negative. See, she was not a super well behaved kid. For me most of the negative came from a place of jealousy. They seemed to be past coaches, or coaches of a team she should have joined, or people with kids near her competition level that felt their kid should get recruited instead. The would say thing like "Shes undeserving", "She is not worthy", "She is going to get into to much trouble time that scholarship rolls around."

6 months after her verbal, her boyfriend was picked up on video selling marijuana in HS, which was illegal at that time. The cops in that arrest remember seeing him on a video shop lifting jeans about 2 months earlier. So they go get that video, and behold, little miss softball is there with her boyfriend when the shoplifting happened.

Well those same people that were expressing so much jealousy before were off like rockets. Calling the coach. They were generally excited for themselves, generally proud of themselves for watching/causing the demise of this young lady. Well that young lady picked up the pieces committed to a second university where she had a very strong run and she will graduate in May with a great degree.

Those jealous coaches and jealous parents to a tee, have not fared so well. Coaches ran into the standard coaching traps, of affairs and team finance issues. The parents, their kids have gone on to do far worse things. Many not graduating from college.

Their problems was they felt someone else's demise, someone else's failure vindicated who they were. In all honesty that thinking ended up trapping them, not her. It is fun when she comes back and runs into some of those coaches and parents and she gets to ask "What happened to you guys?"

My thing is that if you spend too much time reveling in the failure of someone else, or thinking this has vindicated you, or justified you in some way. Not only will these girls and coach get a learning lesson, hopefully you will as well.

[PDad]

I haven't heard of any action taken by the college coaches yet. What should they do?

a. Void the agreement if the player lies to them about what happened. Otherwise, be open to maintaining the agreement if the player fesses up to a lapse of judgement and takes action to demonstrate they've learned their lesson.

b. Void the agreement to distance themselves from the player and bad press upon their program.

c. Void the agreement to deter others from doing something similar.

d. Both b & c.

[Safebyahare]

Great gobs of googley moogley,
At present over half a million people have viewed the short video.
Let's review the science of impact just to put a little perspective on subject.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG8NOR6Lg2c
Ouch! a ball to the face might be considered harmful to ones health.
That by itself should trigger a message in the grey matter of right or wrong.
As for the players,,they are the coaches collateral damage, if reports are true that he already threw them under the bus, to save his own hide.Now that in its self is a whole different matter.
PDad: An (A) is always a good grade. Plus enjoyed your Few Good Men parody nominated 2013 HB Award.

[fastpitchdad05]

None of the above. LIfe's journey is best enjoyed looking through the front window, not the rear.

It's tricky. But best understood from a softball analogy. If you carry that last bad at bat into your next at bat, you are likely guaranteeing follow one bad at bat with another. I would try to gather an honest assessment of the landscape and jump back to the task of seeking out opportunities. Whom made what statements, analysis, wheretofores and whathows would be left to them on the message boards that are not doing anything else with their time.

Let me give you a little bit more of a hint of one way this may turn out, in the bigger picture.

6 years ago there was a young lady in our area. She had exceptional speed. She committed to an Pac 12 team as an early Sophomore. There was this immense spat of chatter in the local softball community. Some of it excited for her, but lot of it negative. See, she was not a super well behaved kid. For me most of the negative came from a place of jealousy. They seemed to be past coaches, or coaches of a team she should have joined, or people with kids near her competition level that felt their kid should get recruited instead. The would say thing like "Shes undeserving", "She is not worthy", "She is going to get into to much trouble time that scholarship rolls around."

6 months after her verbal, her boyfriend was picked up on video selling marijuana in HS, which was illegal at that time. The cops in that arrest remember seeing him on a video shop lifting jeans about 2 months earlier. So they go get that video, and behold, little miss softball is there with her boyfriend when the shoplifting happened.

Well those same people that were expressing so much jealousy before were off like rockets. Calling the coach. They were generally excited for themselves, generally proud of themselves for watching/causing the demise of this young lady. Well that young lady picked up the pieces committed to a second university where she had a very strong run and she will graduate in May with a great degree.

Those jealous coaches and jealous parents to a tee, have not fared so well. Coaches ran into the standard coaching traps, of affairs and team finance issues. The parents, their kids have gone on to do far worse things. Many not graduating from college.

Their problems was they felt someone else's demise, someone else's failure vindicated who they were. In all honesty that thinking ended up trapping them, not her. It is fun when she comes back and runs into some of those coaches and parents and she gets to ask "What happened to you guys?"

My thing is that if you spend too much time reveling in the failure of someone else, or thinking this has vindicated you, or justified you in some way. Not only will these girls and coach get a learning lesson, hopefully you will as well.

And all of this changes exactly nothing about what happened on that softball field that night.

Let's stay on task, people. The red herrings being spouted are out of control.

[fastpitchdad05]

I haven't heard of any action taken by the college coaches yet. What should they do?

a. Void the agreement if the player lies to them about what happened. Otherwise, be open to maintaining the agreement if the player fesses up to a lapse of judgement and takes action to demonstrate they've learned their lesson.

b. Void the agreement to distance themselves from the player and bad press upon their program.

c. Void the agreement to deter others from doing something similar.

d. Both b & c.

PDad, I don't know the answer to that.

But it would be nice if someone would do something.

[as the world turns]

After reading the last couple of pages of comments, I can now understand how people found the cops who beat Rodney King not guilty, and also how the jury found OJ not guilty, and how voters believed the Benghazi Embassy massacre was about a youtube video.

[Safebyahare]

Jumping Jahosaphat at this rate more people will watch this video than sign up for Obamacare.
This IS not about jealously, or taking down anyone or anything so please save the trivial BS.
To down play what is on video really shows a lack of charactor and integrity.
I do not claim to be holier than thou,,,but you may kiss my ring, just don't make eye contact.
Authority obedience is what stops me from bashing the players.
The coach, Mel Sievers needs to grow a pair, man up, and face up to the crime of stupidity.
Then he may look forward though the front windshield of life.
Until that time,,,he needs to look out the rear window and see who and what he just ran over.
PS For a positive please note the third baseman shaking hands with base runner after call.
That is called sportsmanship.