by CT
(Texas)
I am a dad of a coach-pitch 8U player. Our team is new this season and we are struggling to get out of the hole, power rating wise. We had a low power rating and were paired against a much higher power-rated (more than twice the rating) team on our first Saturday game. We were only down by 2 late in the game when their coach started stalling.
I was videotaping the game behind home plate. I was sitting and talking to a parent from the other team. Some of the tactics the other team used were the pitcher (coach) was throwing balls that would intentionally go past our catcher making him get up and retrieve it. Also, their boys would walk slowly to the plate and/or waited until the 6th pitch to hit the last pitch. The parent (from opposing team) sitting next to me picked up on the stalling tactics and blurted out to their coach that they did not need to do this in order to win.
They were at bat when their first base coach looked at his watch and determined the game was over due to time. He started walking across the field in the middle of a pitch. The ump stopped play and when our coach walked over to find out what the issue was, a female from their stands (assumed to be a mother) started cussing out loud that it was tough S@#$ (feces). She was loud and kept saying it over and over. The game was called and we lost 8-6.
One of our moms went to the tourney director and reported the behavior immediately.
Our second game was with another team from the same town. Their coach walked right up and apologized for the behavior of the first team and wanted us to know that not all the teams from that town were like that. They proved out to be correct.
We have gone on to face the Cussing team again since the first incident. We ended in a tie game the second time we faced them. This caused their tourney to derail putting them out early plus it helped us. This time they were silent, but managed to take the issues to the parking lot with some of our coaches having had words afterwards.
We use it as an example that the true test of character is often revealed when you play your best and rising to your opponent’s level sometimes will bring out the poor sport in them.