RJM posted:A parent who convinces their son it’s the coach’s fault is just training him for following a family legacy. I’ll bet you can find that parent at the water cooler blaming his boss for the promotion he didn’t get. He can be proud knowing someday his son too, will be a complainer at the water cooler.
Whether it started with fakery or not (I'm agnostic on that), this has been an interesting, and helpful, thread for me. It's always good to be reminded of some things, especially at the start of a new HS season. I'm new(ish) here, but really have come to appreciate this site--and a level of civility here that is mighty rare on the Internet.
One last try on this topic: I think I agree 99+% with RJM and other posters, but with a reservation. You may say I'm splitting hairs or obsessing (and believe me, you wouldn't be the first to tell me so 
).
Sometimes I think a kid needs a parent to acknowledge that the kid is being treated unfairly, and not just told to work harder. Not often--maybe rarely--but sometimes. One example that comes to mind is dealing with prejudice. My daughter had a teacher who had a reputation for favoring boys over girls. I say this as someone who also had a son go through this teacher's class and who has heard the same verdict from other parents who had kids of both genders in this class in other years. My daughter makes honey badgers look timid by comparison and she worked like heck to earn the grade she ultimately made in that class. I never suggested she had any excuse to do otherwise, never complained to the teacher or the administration. But I did acknowledge to my kid that her teacher seemed to have a problem and that I thought my daughter was right to feel she was being treated unjustly. (I won't go into details, but I'm a teacher and I don't make this accusation lightly.)
Granted, a coach's decision to bench a baseball player is different in a lot of ways, and all of us ought to be miiiiighty careful before we assume anything about a coach other than the best intentions and honest motives. I guess the tl;dr version is: Sometimes I think the message ought to be "yes, that is unfair and it's ok to think so; but you still have to do and act your best," not just "your coach/teacher/boss gets to make the rules, so suck it up and try harder."