Nine-year-old ballplayer told he's too good to pitchTHE ASSOCIATED PRESSNine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player - too good. The right-hander has a 40 mph fastball - and throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more.
This nine year old kid is a pitcher in a little league in New Haven. He throws 40 miles per hr.(Which is half as fast as Teddy "the Swimmer" was driving when he thought the lake was a good place to park the car.)
Apparently this kid throws too fast and this kid is too good-they kicked him out of the damn league! One team even forfeited a game rather than face this kid.
Mother of Mercy, has it come to this? The kid who excels is punished so not to hurt the feelings of the other kids?
Baseball is a great metaphor for life. Sometimes you hit a homer, sometimes you strikeout, and most of the time you hit the ball somewhere and run like hell. Great lessons are to be learned from each.
But these parents, this league, wants to legislate failure out of the game. I have one word for these parents: Soccer. Go have your kid play soccer, where you can run around in the meadow like sheep, without the accountability of an individual box score.
How the f**k are we supposed to win wars 20 years from now when America is afraid to let kids strike out in little league? Do you think the kids that had to face a nine year old Tom Seaver or Sandy Koufax forfeited? Of course not. They struck out like honorable young men and went back to the bench.
I saw the genesis of this approximately 15 years ago when CJ ran his basketball youth program. When we would split kids into permanent basketball teams, some of those kids that did not end up on a team with what was considered a "top player" would complain, saying that they had no chance to win, that it was "so unfair."
That would always infuriate me. These kids would quit on themselves and their game even before the tournament started! They were talented, and could compete, but they way I saw it, they would demean themselves by saying they could not compete.
You see this "shelter from failure" everywhere. Read the newspapers every June & December. There is always a story about some NYU student throwing themselves out of a 20 story window. Why? They got their first B or C on a fuckin report card. Prior to that, they were always told by their parents how smart they are, and how great they are. So they get their first B, and they lose their fu*kin mind. They were sheltered from failure.
What is the solution here? What the hell do I know? As Obama said when he was asked when does life begin "that's above my pay grade".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment