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HS Tryout Sabotage

Hi All –
First of all thanks to everyone for their advice regarding my kid and his decisions regarding HS tryouts. Right now things appear to be going well. Ran into a “situation” and I think my kid did well, but Im hoping it doesn’t hurt his chances…

During the school day a kid comes up and says to my kid, “thought you did pretty well at practice yesterday”. My kid thanks him and goes about his day. Last night’s practice/tryout was focused on hitting. Coaches tell the kids beforehand that they are most concerned on the mechanics and things like bat speed, etc and less on them actually hitting the ball. Anyway, they go through a number of drills using the tee and soft toss. At one point during soft toss they ask the kids to start placing the ball around the “field” they set up some targets and ask the kids to get as close to the targets as possible. My kid hits the targets dead on 3 of the 5 times. He’s feeling pretty good about himself as his tee work was good and he is able to move the ball around like they ask. After that they ask the kids to pair up. One kid will pitch while the other one hits. The kid that stopped my kid in the hall asks if he wants to be his partner. My kid is pretty easy going, so he partners up with him. My kid throws first, says he throws the kid a nice speed fastball pretty much down the plate every time. My kid gets his turn to hit, the kid throws him one ball down the middle and the proceeds to purposely put everything else up and inside outside of the strike zone. Giving my kid nothing to hit. My son says he jacked the first one (the strike) and then after watching 6 or 7 pitches go by the coach starts telling my sons partner to put the ball down the middle of the plate. Kid brings the ball down but still keeps throwing outside of the strike zone. Another 3 or 4 pitches later, the coach again talks to my kids partner. Still no improvement. Throws a couple close but outside. My kid goes after a couple that are close and fouls them off. I asked him way he did this and he states, “I figured I had to let them see my swing at some point”. Anyway, this time the coach starts to lecture and yell at the other kid. Still nothing across the plate. They end my kids session. My kid comes home and is now depressed and explains to me what happens. He also says that some of his friends told him that the kid is actually a pretty good pitcher with decent control and was most likely doing this to keep my kid from hitting something. Basically I tell him he should be good. If the coaches really saw that the kid was purposely not throwing to my kid and repeatedly talked to the other kid they knew what was going on. I was a little surprised that the coach didn’t have someone else throw to my kid but I guess they probably saw what they needed to with the tee work and soft toss. Anyway, the coaches are big on teamwork and the intangibles (hustle, being “professional”, etc) so I also explained to him that this kid probably hurt himself more than taking you out of the running for a position.
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