A LESSON TO BE LEARNED

TR,

We have disagreed here on a few topics....

You right on target with this one! The simple beauty of baseball, the game is never out of reach until the last out is made!

(Being a Sox fan, though Its hard to use that particular example....lol)

NH

We are allowed to disagree--that is what discussion is all about

Right you are. New England Lightning 13U team was down 9-0 to a very good Florida team in the first inning of the championship game at AAU Nationals last year. They kept battling and won the game and the National Championship. 11-9 I think was the final score.

Don't give up. Keep battling. That's when you draw upon all you've learned and put it to use. The teams that learn their skills well and stay focused have a good chance to win. The teams that learn to get discouraged and give up will most probably lose.

Absolutely correct TRH, no matter how bad, never quit. On the inverse, no lead is ever safe, never relax and think victory is in the bag. What is the old saying, "winners never quit and quitters never win."

Not that I feel great giving the yankees compliments, being a Sox fan and all , but not only did they come back to win, but they did so without 3 of their stud offensive players - Matsui, Sheffield and I think Giambi was out also. How many teams have we all seen give up when a key player or two is out?

Excellent topic! But what does that tell us about running up the score at any level of baseball (ie. bunting for base hit, stealing, etc...)? If no lead is safe, then why should a team call off the dogs at a certain point? Does this only apply when one team is clearly superior to another?

Let's look at high school ball. My belief is that it is about walks and errors. Which ever team minimizes these on defense, and optimizes them offense, stands to win more times than not. With that said, how many of you have been up by 10 in the 4th inning. Take your pitcher out to get somebody else some innings and save your stud some innings. The next thing you know, the new pitcher is walking batters, kids are getting on base, and now your team is only up by 2 in the 6th. And by the way, you had opportunities the last couple of innings to steal, or the 3rd baseman was playing back and you could have easily dropped down a bunt, etc... If you lose, did you blow it by not taking advantage of every opportunity...or can you accept the fact that you simply blew the lead, but you hold your head high cause you didn't try to "embarrass" the other team earlier in the game?

Just something for debate...

larrythompson,

Very good points and interesting question. Never forget a college game where we were ahead 8-0 in the 5th inning and stole 2B. The opposing dugout including the coach was giving us and me a hard time about that. I felt like asking them if they thought the game was over, but I didn't. We scored that inning to go up 9-0. We ended up losing the game in extra innings 10-9. Without the stolen base they would have beat us without any extra innings.

LARRY

Great points

I am not an advocate of the "mercy rule"--I can see it in tournament where you need to maintain a schedule but in LL and HS NOW WAY--anything can happen and it usually does

Good angle on this larry!

8-0 is not that big a lead, as PGStaff saw, things can happen quickly. Too bad you didn't ask that question PG, the look on the coach's face would have been great!

I think there are times when you know when the game is out of reach, some games really are one-sided, you're familiar with the team, you know they just aren't capable of playing at your team's level, there's some history to back it up etc etc - and that's when you hold off running up the score, but I think after a while you get a feel for when a team is dangerous and I'd never back off on those teams. And in a tournament when you don't know a team at all, I say go for the kill. If they are clearly overmatched, then make a decision at some point based on the score, the remaining innings, etc.

To expand on something larry said . . . In a tournament last year we were up something like 10-0 in a game, the coach took my boy off the mound and put in a mediocre pitcher to 'hold' the game - maybe he gives up 2 or 3 runs but we still win, but no! he gave up a bunch of runs over two innings and the other team was right back in the game 10-8 with bases loaded. Due to the liberal pitcher re-entry rules, pitchers could be brought back in if they hadn't been removed from the game (they were still playing in the field) so my son was brought back to put out the fire, which he did, we went up by a few more runs and ultimately won the game. It gave my son another win, but I didn't like him being used that way, it wasn't good for his arm to go 3 innings, be done and then an hour later come back in and pitch two more innings. This happened a couple times and it's no wonder his arm was a bit more tired than it should have been by the end of the season.

Gentlemen...it makes me feel good that my take on this situation is affirmed by you all. I respect your knowledge of the game and your opinions, based on my reading of your posts the past couple of years.

The best league my team ever played in was organized by Marc Cuseta (Bayside Yankees) and Paul Murphy (Grand Slam Diamonds). We, as a league, had a gentlemen's agreement about running scores up. Our position was that we were all highly competitive programs, and one team could beat another by 20 runs, then so be it. Instead of the loser worrying about what the other guy was doing, he should focus more on what he needs to do to make his team better. We never had a problem, and it worked out great!

And...I know exactly what Dad10 is saying, and I agree whole-heartedly. You do know once in a while that another team doesn't have a prayer, and all good coaches back off when they recognize it. Everybody has pride, and the worse thing one man can do to another is to insult his pride.

Thanks for responding to this one!

Saying my coach likes using is this:
"Scoreboard doesn't dictate the way you play"

This is true in all sports, not just baseball. You have to play the right way all the time whether you're up 10 or down 10 you still play the game.