Does it bother you when your opponent runs up the score?

I do not mind what you describe. The types of thing that I do not appreciate is when your team is getting crushed and parents and players on the opposing team are yelling "drop" or other sort of thing when one of their players hits a fly ball into the out field.

If it part of the every day game such as stealing etc, so be it.

the only thing that I get upset about when getting my brains beat in is when they suicide. if that is before about 4 runs up from run rule (so if 10 run rule then maybe 14 runs up) then it doesn't bother me But I had a coach suicide squeeze once when he was up 22 runs. That I was mad about.

 

Typical when I am way up (same rule of thumb that I alway use for being way up or down plus 4 runs over run rule- I use that so we can still run rule probably before i) back down. I stop stealing aggressively but will take extra base on hits, advance on a wild pitch etc. I never bunt when I am that far up. My players can practice the art of hitting instead of bunting at that point. Plenty of times to bunt.

Why were you mad?

It's not like hockey or football where you're getting physically beat up and shredded in a lop-sided loss.  In baseball, it's just a meaningless number on the scoreboard.

 

For me it was simply that he was trying to show up my kids. I knew/know that coach and he is that way. "better than you blah blah blah" I wouldn't have minded if they had hit in that run or scored on a WP. . He laughed about it while he was doing it. Basically he wasn't winning with class  

Freddy, is it a meaningless number?  Per myself, I see it as disrespectful to run up the score but cheap things like stealing etc. when up by a large number of runs.  Do so to my team and suffer the consequence.  As an FYI, I had a team that was without a varsity pitcher as we had had several makeup games in a row and so, I had to pull up a freshman to pitch.  Though this young man would go on to win many games on the varsity, he was not ready at this point.  The team we played that night brought 9 players knowing the situation we were in and so that they didn't have any ability to sub in lesser players.  They short games us.  I went home and busted up my house doing about $5,000 worth of damage.  We played them again and you might say we sent a message.  We continued to send that message until that coach was forced to resign.  I made sure everyone in my area knew of my dislike and that I would get even each and every time we played.  In my case, those numbers matter.  I can be a great friend or a worthy enemy.  You don't want me for an enemy.

B45,

You got me laughing with that one, about busting up the house.

I don't run up scores, far from it.

But if I did, I wouldn't do it to your team.

Freddy, I wish I were telling a lie but I am not.  We had a heat pump back then.  It was 2 in the morning and I was outside so my wife could sleep.  I walked over and kicked it.  That hurt so I kicked it again.  Before I knew it, I was in full rage.  When I called the heating/cooling guy to fix it, he told me they didn't make it anymore and so, i had to replace the cooling unit outside and the heating unit inside.  To do that, we had to take out a wall.  It was a huge mess and the wife was not happy.  Understatement!

I'll tell one more story about me and a team being short gamed with the opposing coach running up the score.  We were in the sectionals.  The coach from the other team and I were very close once upon a time.  I had a stater get injured and was throwing a soph.  He was a great kid and competitor but was not equal to this task.  I could have pitched my #1 but we would not have stood a chance in the next round and he would have been on short rest.  We were in the fourth when everything broke loose and I had to make the change.  Soph in and they are running, bunting, ...  It got ugly fast.  We are about to be short gamed and so, my #1 a senior who would go on to have a tremendous career in college begged me to go in for one inning.  I allowed him to do it.  On the first pitch, I called for a fastball in the hitter's ear.  Yes, we had a signal for that although I had never used it.  My senior steps off and looks at me.  He yells out, "Coach, you don't really want me to hit this kid in the head do you?"  I walked out and told him no I messed up and then I walked over to the 3rd base coaching box and told my former friend that I almost had his kid hurt.  I then told him we were done as friends.  Calling for that pitch is the most classless thing I have ever done as a head coach. 

I honestly hate this question because it falls in that "unwritten rule" category of what you are supposed to do or do not.  It varies so much from person to person that it's hard to know what is cool and what is being disrespectful.  I used to get pretty worked up over this stuff and get mad.  I've even said a few things to the other coaches but then I saw what the complaining was doing to my team - it was turning them into "victims" where they have a ready made excuse for losing.

 

Anybody who gets drilled is justified in getting mad because it stinks and I question your competitiveness if it doesn't bother you.  But at the end of the day it's your fault for getting beat that bad.  The most obvious thing to take away from a bad beat down is that your team is not as good as the other team.  You need to worry about your own team instead of what the other team is doing.

 

I've coached football a long time and that is the sport where you really hear about getting blown out (look at the 91 - 0 thread in the main forum).  Here's my take - if you want to run your starters out there every series and throw / try to score then that is your job.  My job is to stop you; not hope you stop yourself.  If I can't stop you then I need to find a way to get better or stop playing you.

 

I think when you get into a blowout situation the losing team should make substitutions first as a white flag.  You realize / admit that you cannot win the game so you put your subs in.  Then the winning team puts their subs in and finish the game with subs.  But once you put those subs in you actually play the game.  Nothing I hate more than when one team is up by a lot and their subs are in people expect them to be super conservative and not execute the full offense / defense.  Those kids work their butts off in practice to help make the starters successful so when they get a chance to get in the game they should be allowed to play - not make the other team feel better about themselves.  

 

One year I was playing this team and was beating them by 9 runs.  The game is pretty much over and my team is the better one.  I make a lot of substitutions and put my younger guys in.  The other coach knows my subs are in.  Out of nowhere my batter drops down a drag bunt and it goes foul.  I didn't call it and it caught me off guard but then I looked at the 3B and he's super deep almost beside the LF.  I teach my guys to look for that and take advantage of it.  All that kid did was do what I taught him and I called him up to me.  My goal was to talk to him about when and when not to drop a drag bunt.  The other coach is just short of dogcussing me from his dugout.  My kid was a little shaken as to why the other coach was mad.  At that point I realized I had no business telling that kid he shouldn't have tried to drop a drag because he was trying to do what I taught him.  My kid had a breakthrough in recognition of things to take advantage of.  My younger kid who rarely got to play just got better so why should I tell him to try not to do the things he's taught just to make the other team happy?

 

The thing I see from the losing team is they expect the winning team to basically stop trying but it's OK that the losing team can keep trying as hard as they can.  I just don't understand that.  If I'm beating you then I'm supposed to shut down and stop performing just so we can see if the other team can score to get back in it.  You're punishing the winning team for being good and rewarding the losing team by allowing them lesser competition so they can get back in the game.  Just don't get it.

 

So basically take care of your own team instead of griping and complaining because you can't compete with someone.  Don't turn your team into a victim by taking the focus off the working to get better.

That should be a lesson to any coach that "what goes around comes around".  

 

Even in Travel Ball my sons coach never ran up the score because eventually we would be on the other end.  

Just want to make something clear after re-reading my post this morning.  I pretty much agree with the stories that CoachB25 posted.  You can win big with class but you can also win big by being a jacka$$.  The other coaches that B25 are talking about are jacka$$es and I would have had words with them as well.  But if I look across the field and see that you're playing younger guys or if you're staying within your philosophy (not running trick plays just for the sake of trick plays) and you're whipping my butt then it's time for me to get better or schedule a team I can compete with better.  If you pull out some crazy play that is designed to get a big gain (trick pick offs in baseball - onside kick up big in football) and your side is laughing and giggling because it worked or not worked is where people lack class.

 

A few years ago I was the offensive coordinator in football where we were on the losing end of a butt whooping.  At halftime the game was over - we were down something like 41 - 12.  The second half was just because we had to.  The other team was really good that year and was on the winning end of a lot of blowouts and we played them two weeks before the playoffs.  Start of the second half he came out with his starters for three possessions and played fairly conservative but scored two times (TD and FG).  The rest of the game he played all younger guys and so did we.  They put another two TDs on the board and we got one so the score was really ugly.  I know the head coach and he came straight to me, shook my hand and apologized.  I cut him off and told him I understood.  His starters rarely played the second half and it was playoff time.  He needed to get his team ready to play four quarters.  His subs played the rest of the game and they deserve to run the offense like they are supposed to.  I saw nothing that he should have apologized for so I told him to stop apologizing.  He said that he got so many complaints about running up the score but sometimes you are so good that you can't help it.  If that's the case then do it with class.  I was still ticked off we lost and everything any coach feels but at the end of the day we had to get better.

 

We played that team last year and they won the state championship so they were really good again.  We were their closest game until the state championship and lost by 20 instead of 40 some.  In fact we had two dropped TD passes which could have changed the momentum a lot to our favor.  We got better.....not enough but we are closing the gap.

"So basically take care of your own team instead of griping and complaining because you can't compete with someone.  Don't turn your team into a victim by taking the focus off the working to get better."

 

Coach2709, thanks for writing what I was thinking when I started this thread.

... and I agree with Coach 2709.  I knew who was down on our schedule and took along sophs and freshmen to play if we got way ahead.  BTW, I don't consider being down by 9 to be rubbing it in if you run etc.  At that point, you might be stealing to get the final run scored to short game an opponent.  IMO, that is fine.  In the once case I mentioned, the opposing team was stealing on us when ahead by 14.  We had our best player sustain an injury we didn't have the firepower to come back that year.  That was in sectionals and we were very young.  We would go on to beat that team many years in a row.  With regards to the other team, that coach brought 9 BECAUSE he knew we didn't have pitching and he wanted to get a big win for his team before our regional seed meeting.  The local newspapers had made a point of publishing our games and the fact that we were trying to get in all 34 of our games and were asking schools that had lights if we could play games on their diamonds in order to complete our makeup games.  I think we played 5 games in 3 days in that stretch.  We ended up playing that team in regional play and annihilated them.  While that guy was coach, his team never played a complete game against us again.  After you have made your subs, you've done what you need to do imo.  These other kids should be allowed to play as long as you aren't doing certain things like squeeze plays. 

When my son was 12 he played in a travel team that played tournaments and in a summer league,  The league consisted of local town all star teams.  My son's team was a mix of good players from three states.  We played a double header against one of these teams.

 

When we arrived at their field the parents, players, and coached were talking trash about the travel team an program.  Parents were very loud, it was bad.  right before the game the other coach announced that there was no mercy rule today and they were going to show the travel team was a joke.

 

The parents were the worst.  We beat them 41-0 in game one and 26-2 in game two.  The other parents never let up.  Our coaches got mad an put it to them.   It was very ugly.  The strangest games I had every been involved in. 

Amen coach - I agree with you 100%.

Of course but that's just the competitiveness in me.  Get better and and won't happen.

Both

Does the other team bother me. No. There is nothing they or their fans can do that upsets me. It's not their fault we are getting killed. I never understood this whole their disrespecting us thing. If one team is killing the other then there's a good chance the don't respect them.

At my team. Yes. Anytime I have been on the losing end of a bad blow out it was because my team was making way too many mistakes. Teams can lose and lose soundly to a much better team but generally (at least in my experience) blow outs come with making one mistake after another.

Never bothered me. I would rather get beat by 20 runs than have the opponents turn the game into a joke.  Using reserves is good, but I would rather see those reserves compete (even score more runs) than completely disrespect us by not running or hitting opposite hand.  Those are the things that bother me when I see it.  

 

Not sure if it is just me or what.  One time our college team got beat 22-0.  The opposing team played hard the whole way.  We played hard the whole way.  But there is some humor involved in these slaughters.  Things just get out of hand, everything goes wrong.  Certain things get to a point where you can't help but laugh.  Maybe that is why some people call them "laughers"!  It sure is humbling when your on the short end of one of these. It actually helped us because we went on a 20 game winning streak after that game including a win over the same team that beat us 22-0.