The web we weave

Rule 605 states it very clear, The coach should of informed the players at the start of the season.
And I don't believe that the scout did not know the rule.
He knows very well what the rule is.

605. PROFESSIONAL TRYOUT
A student shall become ineligible for CIF competition if he/she participates in any tryout for a professional team in any CIF-approved sport
during the high school season of sport. The season of sport for a school is that period of time that elapses between the first interscholastic
contest and the final contest in that particular sport.
NOTE: See Bylaw 1200 for CIF-approved sports. (Revised May 2009 Federated Council)

EH

quote:

Originally posted by theEH:
Rule 605 states it very clear, The coach should of informed the players at the start of the season.
And I don't believe that the scout did not know the rule.
He knows very well what the rule is.

Don’t think for a second this particular guy who has been coaching HSB here in Ca for more than 20 years doesn’t tell his players what the eligibility rules are. I know he does because I’ve heard him do it! The problem is, anyone who expects these kids to remember what they’ve been told is foolish! The 1st time the blood rushes out of their head and into other parts of their body, half of what they remember goes along with it. That’s why these things are the final responsibility of adults!

It really doesn’t make a lot of difference if the scout knew the rule or not. CIF sent a letter to every MLB organization last year when virtually the same thing happened, and they warned every organization what the rules were. If he didn’t already know and the Bluejays didn’t tell him, having been a Mil Player and a scout for more than a couple years in another organization as well, he **** sure should have.

Personally, I’ve sent a letter to the BlueJays Director of Amateur Scouting, and I hope others will as well, and they’ll think long and hard about this guy, if for nothing else than that he’s obviously not a good representative for their organization.

I have a different take on this rule and the situation caused by it.

I think the "no tryout" rule is analogous to the NCAA rule which prohibits players from hiring an agent or having anyone other than a player's guardians be involved in negotiations with professional teams. In both cases, the rule works against the player's interests.

The rules also offend common sense. If a player is good enough to potentially command a million dollar siging bonus, how can it make sense to deny him the knowledge and communication skills of an agent? Similarly, how does it make sense to deny a high school player the opportunity to demonstrate his skills?

Of course, it is an open secret that college players do engage agents, disguised as "advisors", and those advisors do negotiate on behalf of the players.

Similarly, we should expect that high school players who are potential 1-5 round picks will make themselves available to evaluations (the CIF rule doesn't define tryouts, so who knows which activities qualify?) by MLB teams. A player who is thinking ahead isn't going to wait until the high school season is over-- maybe he'll pull a hammy. Better to have some solid evaluations already completed. MLB teams want more evaluation that can be accomplished at games or practices, and most players will accomodate that need.

I don't know anything about this situation beyond the newspaper articles. But I suspect that there are multiple players in this general area who have participated in some sort of "tryout". They've just done a better job of avoiding attention,

3FG,

I have nothing at all against a player doing whatever he can to make his options more promising, and neither do the rules! Its pretty simple. If you wanna do that, you’re ineligible to play HS baseball anymore.

Contrary to popular belief, HS baseball is no more the minor leagues for the minor leagues, any more than college baseball is. Its important to keep professional things out of the amateur as much as possible because amateur sports, no matter what the level, involve a lot of people putting in a lot of time and effort for something other than signing a pro contract.

As I said, there’s no problem with a player giving up his right to be an amateur to try his luck as a pro. But to try to get the best of both worlds at the same time is BS.

As for other players who have cheated and gotten away with it, as far as I’m concerned, they’re scum who risk their teammates, and use them as dirt to grind beneath their feet so they can walk a smooth path to their own selfish glory.

Scum? Come on stats thats taking it a little too far don't you think? We are talking about 17 18 year kids. And it is possible that some kids have no idea its against the rules? Calling hs players scum is over the line.

quote:

As for other players who have cheated and gotten away with it, as far as I’m concerned, they’re scum who risk their teammates, and use them as dirt to grind beneath their feet so they can walk a smooth path to their own selfish glory

in what way would you consider them cheating? they may have broken the rule,but they weren't any better for it. how would attending a tryout give them an edge over any other hs player?

a bs rule with bs enforcement in my opinion. no different than a tryout for a travel team.

A member of the competitive math team at a school goes to an accounting firm to interview for a possible job.
Is he barred then from competing with the math team?
Why is this any different???

quote:

Originally posted by getagoodpitchtohit:
A member of the competitive math team at a school goes to an accounting firm to interview for a possible job.
Is he barred then from competing with the math team?
Why is this any different???

This analogy doesn't hold up. If there were professional competitive math teams, that would be a more suitable analogy. Yours is akin to a HS baseball player seeking a job at a professional club as a batboy or entry-level office job, both of which are allowed.

quote:

Why is this any different???

Because the CIF says it's against the rules. Nobody forces a kid to play in the league..


We had an incident a few years ago where we had a football player ruled ineligible after he broke a similar rule. This kid participated in the Punt, Pass, and Kick competition as a high school freshman. By IHSA rule, he was ruled ineligible and had to sit the rest of the season.

Now he's a kicker in the Mountain West Conference..

The rule is ridiculous and has no positive effect for any coach, player, district, etc. involved.

It does not make any sense to penalize a player that has pro aspirations...for absolutely no identifable reason, none with any justification anyway...

It is as silly as shutting down lemonade stands, government run amuck.

quote:

Originally posted by Coach_May:
Scum? Come on stats thats taking it a little too far don't you think? We are talking about 17 18 year kids. And it is possible that some kids have no idea its against the rules? Calling hs players scum is over the line.

OK. If you think cheating is ok, that’s up to you. Me, when I see someone knowingly break the rules, s/he’s a cheat, and I have no use for them.

Now keep in mind, I don’t blame the kids who were ignorant for anything! There are adults at work in these things who have the ultimate responsibility. But the ones who knew exactly what they were doing but did it anyway, will always be scum to me.

quote:

Originally posted by 20dad:
in what way would you consider them cheating? they may have broken the rule,but they weren't any better for it. how would attending a tryout give them an edge over any other hs player?

a bs rule with bs enforcement in my opinion. no different than a tryout for a travel team.

To me, cheating doesn’t mean anyone is better off for it. Its that they tried to be that makes it cheating.

You have your standards and I have mine. The rules are there for a purpose, and to me its just that simple. If the rules are no good and don’t fulfill their purpose, by all means get rid of them!

BTW, there are states where HS players aren’t allowed to play or even try out with any teams other than their HS team, or they are declared ineligible.

Read my post again Stats. Where in that post did I say cheating was OK? Read it again. Your a grown man, right? And your on here calling someone else's son "scum." And you know for a fact that these players knowingly broke the rules? And even if they did they might still be great young men who simply make a bad decision or a bad mistake. To call HS kids scum is over the line.

Those that are so quick to call names and judge others cause me concern. These people will have to answer for what they did. Isn't that enough?

It would be nice if at these tryouts those in charge state, "Has everyone here checked to make sure this tryout does not affect your high school eligibility?" It's not their responsibility. But it wouldn't hurt.

I think it's a stupid rule. But it is a rule. I may be wrong, but I believe back when dinosaurs ruled te earth I had to get signatures my from high school and Legion coaches before attending MLB tryout camps. We would attend before senior year.

quote:

You have your standards and I have mine!

i just don't like to paint with such a broad drush.
there often comes a time in a parents life that their child breaks a rule or two. i certainly hope there isn't a grown man standing there calling him/her names.

just my take on life.your entitled to yours as well.

I was just reading the rules in our state which pertain to this very topic. It couldn't be clearer. That being said, people sometimes make mistakes. Doesn't make them scum, makes them wrong. And they should accept the consequences.

I strongly advise the parents of players to get a working knowledge of the rules which can impact your kid's ability to compete in high school or beyond.

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"Just my take on life. Your entitled to yours as well."

Nuthin's set in concrete, isn't that right 20dad?



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quote:

Originally posted by gotwood4sale:
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"Just my take on life. Your entitled to yours as well."

Nuthin's set in concrete, isn't that right 20dad?



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Jimmy disagrees.

quote:

Originally posted by twotex:
I was just reading the rules in our state which pertain to this very topic. It couldn't be clearer. That being said, people sometimes make mistakes. Doesn't make them scum, makes them wrong. And they should accept the consequences.

I strongly advise the parents of players to get a working knowledge of the rules which can impact your kid's ability to compete in high school or beyond.

It doesn't help scout-coach relations, which are tenuous at times.

quote:

Originally posted by Coach_May:
Read my post again Stats. Where in that post did I say cheating was OK? Read it again. Your a grown man, right? And your on here calling someone else's son "scum." And you know for a fact that these players knowingly broke the rules? And even if they did they might still be great young men who simply make a bad decision or a bad mistake. To call HS kids scum is over the line.

Those that are so quick to call names and judge others cause me concern. These people will have to answer for what they did. Isn't that enough?

The implication to me was you were excusing cheating, and that’s not something I care a lot for. If I was wrong in my assumption, I’m sorry, but no, I don’t’ think scum is too strong a word.

Just like me reading something into what you said, you obviously read something into what I said. Read what I said again. I never said these weren’t fine young men who made what I consider tragic and stupid mistakes.

quote:

As for other players who have cheated and gotten away with it, as far as I’m concerned, they’re scum who risk their teammates, and use them as dirt to grind beneath their feet so they can walk a smooth path to their own selfish glory.

As I’ve said, to me cheating implies something done purposely to circumvent the rules, and no matter what you want to call it, to me that makes whoever does it scum. Not because what they’re doing is so bad, but because they’ve purposely let down those who trust and admire them, and count on them to stand beside them against a common foe.

Likely its just a matter of semantics where you place a certain value on a word, and I don’t share that same value. I get extremely wound up and bent out of shape when people call a kid a cancer because he causes some kind of disharmony on a team. To me, there’s nothing in this world worse than cancer. Nothing! But while scum is pretty vile stuff, it can be cleaned up and isn’t generally associated with death.

I do know what happened in this particular case, and I did not call either of the kids involved scum because of what I knew. If that’s how it somehow came across, all I can say is, it wasn’t intended. There was however, another player involved in a different game who did exactly the same thing on the same day, but with a different ML team. In an interview, he called for our team to have to forfeit the game in which his team lost because 2 of our players broke the rule. Now he’s a kid who’s scum! Here he is, having cheated and gotten away with it, but is now calling to punish someone else who didn’t so he and his team can play some more, even though they’ve been eliminated.

Look. There’s cheaters all over the place in HSB and in sports in general! Trouble is, everyone like to categorize that cheating so that some cheating and some cheaters are worse than others. But to me, it all sucks, and sports are worse off for having people like that in it!

It might help if Stats4Gnats put down the stone tablets he received from on high and picked up a dictionary instead.

Cheating is generally defined as deliberately gaining an illegal or unfair advantage in a competition--scuffing the ball, taking PED's, using your little brother's birth certificate--that sort of thing.

There are lots of ways to break rules that don't involve cheating. Many times it is possible to break a rule without any moral fault at all if the rule is obscure and a reasonable person might not realize the need to find out if there is a rule. When you get caught breaking a rule, you pay the consequences and you move on. Lots of people break rules without becoming scum.

In this case, the young men do not appear to have cheated. They do appear to have broken a rule. Maybe they did it knowingly, maybe they did it innocently. Maybe there's some ambiguity. We don't know. Whatever their level of moral culpability, they're facing the consequences of breaking the rule, and we can hope they come out of this a little wiser without being destined to live miserable lives as "scum" who are forever unworthy to partake of the benefits of the edifying society of Stats4Gnats just because they went to a baseball tryout.

Now if it turns out that the scout knew the rule and either failed to tell the boys or advised them to ignore the rule, then perhaps we might agree on a potential application of the "scum" label. But we're a long way from having enough information to do that.

quote:

Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:
I do know what happened in this particular case, and I did not call either of the kids involved scum because of what I knew. If that’s how it somehow came across, all I can say is, it wasn’t intended.

I understand perhaps you say that it wasn't intended, however, you do know that where ever you post on the internet (aka scorekeeper), there's always an issue.

You have been here for a little bit over a month (this time). I do beleive that your post as well as your comments intentionally were made to cause controversial discussion, I am glad that not too many have fallen into your trap.

We went through the same thing last year with our son. He was invited to three pre-draft workouts. All three were within a two week period right before the draft and during our end of the season tournament.

The IHSAA has a rule against HS kids going to pro workouts but they do/can allow it based on a few things being met. It has to be cleared by the HS coach, the HS Administration and the IHSAA committee. They do, however, limit the number of times or workouts a player can attend.

Once I found out about the rule, I called and talked to the IHSAA as did our HS Athletic Director. After hearing their reasoning behind controlling the situations, I understood it. They realize that it's an important part of the draft evaluations, but they also know that if 15 teams all want a player to work out for them, most of us would do everything we could to accommodate. That can be too much on the player and could also affect the HS team. If the player goes on a workout and gets hurt and no one from the school knew about it, they are going to be ticked because he is presumably one of their best players and could be out for the rest of the season. If they've given their blessings and it happens, they can still be ticked about the outcome, but they can't be ticked at the player.

I'm not saying I totally agree with their need to control the situation, but I do understand their reasoning behind it.

For the record, I wish we had not gone on any of the workouts. The teams had been at all of his HS games all season long. There was nothing that they saw at the workout that they hadn't seen at our games plus all of the before/after game BP and INF.

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The web we weave is very appropriate for this thread.

quote:

Originally posted by sportsfan5:
For the record, I wish we had not gone on any of the workouts. The teams had been at all of his HS games all season long. There was nothing that they saw at the workout that they hadn't seen at our games plus all of the before/after game BP and INF.

If this is so, what is their purpose? What exactly does one do in a workout?

I can understand the reasoning, makes sense.

quote:

Originally posted by Coach_May:
The web we weave is very appropriate for this thread.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:

quote:

Originally posted by sportsfan5:
For the record, I wish we had not gone on any of the workouts. The teams had been at all of his HS games all season long. There was nothing that they saw at the workout that they hadn't seen at our games plus all of the before/after game BP and INF.

If this is so, what is their purpose? What exactly does one do in a workout?

I can understand the reasoning, makes sense.

The main reason I heard from the scouts was that some of the higher up office personnel would be there to see the workout. Area Scouts, XCheckers and Scouting Directors aren't unusual to see travel to see a kid play in a game, but if they are looking at someone for the top few rounds, the GM, Stat guy, Owner, etc can all get a look without flying all over the country to see a handful of guys they are considering.

That was my impression, that the scouts were not able to get all the important people out to games who make their decisions to watch.

I asked because I know lots of kids who have been to workouts and never drafted, and lots who never went to one and did, so I am not so sure how important that criteria really is.

This might be helpful and useful to those who may attend and be considered as "cheating", so they would not be later considered as "scum".

Raise your hand if you have never broken a rule. Doesn't matter if it willfully or without knowing or if it's a dumb rule........nobody???? Then I guess everyone is scum. Does driving faster than the speeding limit make scum? If so then I'm the worst human on the face of the earth because I go 60 - 65 in a 55 daily.

The problem with being up on such a high horse is it's a really long fall when you or someone you love messes up. It seems we as a society forget that it's not an either / or situation when it comes to rules. One side you have those who want drop the hammer on rules breakers and that's it. The other side want to look somewhere else when certain rules are broken by certain people. The right thing to do is punish someone, sit them down and explain what / why they did something wrong in order to help prevent breaking a rule.

In this case it's a dumb rule but it is a rule and the people involved need to understand that. There are a lot of IF's in this scenario. Seems like you got a an AD who is a stickler for the rules due to the fact he was the one who reported the infraction. You got a head coach who did tell the guys about the rule according to somebody on here. You have a scout who either ignored the rule or didn't realise it was a rule. Where are the parents in this? This is a total breakdown in communication between all parties. But a dumb rule was still broken and there is a punishment. It is what it is - learn from it.

TPM,

Obviously you have some kind of personal problem with me, and it shows up every time you make a reply to something I’ve written. I don’t know what your problem is, but its definitely something you need to come to grips with.

As for my intentionally causing controversial discussion, you’re 100% right! WTF is the purpose of having discussion where everyone agrees about everything and kisses each other’s feet?

I daresay that there are a whole lot of folks in the HSBB world who have little or no clue about such things. Would you like them to become even more ignorant, thus causing even more problems?

Get off your high horse and either participate or not, but don’t try to make me the guy wearing the black hat here because I brought something out that hurt quite a number of folks, and has obviously happened before.

I'm with TPM, Gnatty.

I'm not. Gnatty brings up a legitimate topic that I have no doubt is personally tough for lots of people. It's an interesting discussion with lots of different reasonable and conflicting points to be made. TPM gets offended a lot. The solution is easy; she does not have to read it.

coach2709,

I’ve explained my position about why I consider cheaters scum, and I’ve explained my view about what is cheating and what isn’t. Either you haven’t read any of that, or you simply don’t get it, because I thought I made a heck of a distinction between someone who purposely cheated as part of a sport, as opposed to someone who drives 5mph over the speed limit.

I agree with you that the way our society handles those who break rules is horrible, because obviously it hasn’t dissuaded many from continuing to do the same thing over and over again. I also agree with you that there is a “better” way to handle offenders, but unfortunately that isn’t going to work a whole lot better for one simple reason. We’re human beings!

You saying you believe the rule is dumb is where the problems start. Just saying that give people the idea that it isn’t a rule to take seriously. But what they don’t understand is, that’s only your opinion, and certainly not the opinion of those who wrote it. So while it may seem dumb to you, I doubt that you are privy to ALL the reasons that rule was put into effect, and that if you were, chances are you’d agree that it wasn’t such a dumb rule.

Just for the sake of accuracy, while the AD was the one who reported the infraction to the CIF, it was the coach who used the proper channels, who once he became aware of the issue, told the AD, and that started things going through the proper channels.

Let me ask you a simple question. Of all the parents of HS students that come under state assn rules, what percentage have ever actually read them? This is only a guess, but I’ll say that if 1 in 100 actually do that, I’d be floored! Its that way with all “rules”. What percentage of parents or players have actually read the NFHS baseball rulebook?

The fact is, people generally don’t spend much time in law libraries trying to keep up with the laws governing them, or state assn constitutions and bylaws governing HS athletics. They count on those who are supposed to know such things, and word of mouth so that they stay away from the things that could cause serious.

The AD is certainly someone who should have a thorough knowledge of these things, and the coaches in the individual sports should definitely be knowledgeable about the rules governing their sport, and I believe that for the most part, that’s true, at least at the V level. But those who intrude on the system from outside of it need to have a good working knowledge of the rules as well.

I suspect you’d find college recruiters are fully cognizant of HS rules governing athletes they are interested in, and I think you’d find professional scouts the same. After all, its part of their job to know.

There’s more to this particular story than you’ll ever read in a newspaper article, and I suspect that’s why so many people are reacting the way they are. That’s why the one on his “high horse” isn’t me. Its those who ASSUME they know what’s going on because they would rather shoot the messenger than hear the message.

The good news is, the worst that’s gonna happen is, someone might have to defend himself in a parking lot brawl about it, or at least I hope so. And, there’s gonna be a lot ill will between that particular scout and the coaches he has to deal with for a while. There’s already been some friendships that have lasted 10 years or more broken up over it, and that’s probably the saddest thing about it.

quote:

Originally posted by jemaz:
I'm not. Gnatty brings up a legitimate topic that I have no doubt is personally tough for lots of people. It's an interesting discussion with lots of different reasonable and conflicting points to be made. TPM gets offended a lot. The solution is easy; she does not have to read it.

The discussion is for sure very interesting and by all means important, but implying that people (and those that cheat) are scums, etc., well I just don't see what it brings to the topic.

I can read whatever I wish and I can GMO as well.

You have stated yor position but most likely not to well, if so many of us are having trouble with your distinction between what is and what isn't cheating.
BTW, speeding is aganist the law, going for a workout isn't.

I guess we all see things differently, Coach 2709, watch your speed!

That's ok, he's been here before and got the boot, let's see how long he lasts this time!

Clearly gnat has the right to freely express himself in the USA. There are plenty of appropriate places to do so. This forum is not one. A board devoted to and read by high school and younger players doesnt need the jumped up anger and attitude and general hatefulness. Way more appropriate for trailer trash parking lots.

quote:

Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:
There’s more to this particular story than you’ll ever read in a newspaper article, and I suspect that’s why so many people are reacting the way they are. That’s why the one on his “high horse” isn’t me. Its those who ASSUME they know what’s going on because they would rather shoot the messenger than hear the message.

The good news is, the worst that’s gonna happen is, someone might have to defend himself in a parking lot brawl about it, or at least I hope so. And, there’s gonna be a lot ill will between that particular scout and the coaches he has to deal with for a while. There’s already been some friendships that have lasted 10 years or more broken up over it, and that’s probably the saddest thing about it.

I just wanted to point this quote out in case someone missed it.
If the messenger doesn't want to get shot he should tell the whole story, but he had an agenda obviously.
JMO.

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"Way more appropriate for trailer trash parking lots."

Hey, hey, hey! We're in the top condo unit. The dumpsters are down in the lot. Taking out the trash is a real chore. Not an easy undertaking. I'll admit it...I have an attitude when asked to take our trailer trash down to the parking lot.



Forty-five tiring, aggravating, huffing and puffing steps! But worth it, especially if you're a birdwatcher. Lots of Blue Jays for some reason.




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It seems that the bad guy in all of this -- including the behind-the-scene stuff -- is the Blue Jays scout. He should have known the rules -- and, I would imagine, almost certainly did. If not, he was not doing his job very well. It does not benefit anyone to put a high school player(s) in a position in which one entire team is disqualified and another was eliminated by a team that was in reality already technically ineligible. The scout undoubtedly is not "scum", but it was a scummy thing to do. I hope he does his job a bit better next time. I can understand the level of emotion this created.