What do you think

It happens,  not to be rude but it's a 13 yr old game. Yes they r giving it their all and winning is fun but it should be about developing players for HS and beyond. Can't even remember what son did at 13. Scouts r not caring either. Baseball is a sport where weather and darkness makes a diff. Get ready for it to happen more in the future. We've been headed to championship round and had day cancelled for weather. Frustrating but u take it in stride and move on. As long as players are developing and having good time with team u can't ask for more.

There should not have been a protest by the losing Coach to continue. UMP has to make that judgement call in the interest of the players, not coaches or parents or w/l column. 

A coach manages "his" team. An Ump manages the competition between teams with safety as a priority. Was he was within league rules? NJBL rule book should spell it out.  In some leagues, it's 30 min prior to sunset, sometimes earlier. Respect the UMP...he's judge & jury for the league, regardless if losing coach agrees or not. There's a valuable lesson for players to learn to respect the game, respect the rules of the game. 

 

The call was made on the field, by the UMP! Losing coach showed pettiness to his players & lack of leadership. So the other coach was perfectly within his right to take the matter to the league director.

Where is piaa_ump when you need him???

 

Agree with playball...At 13, they need to have fun & it's development...not "Vince Lombardy" mentality. 

Son is a major leaguer & still his philosophy is "Blessed to be paid for "playing a game"!" 

 

I think in most cases the "adults" ruin it for the kids.  Not being there, I can't judge if the darkness call was the right one.  But as stated above, things like that happen.  It's the coach's responsibility to know the rules and play according to them.  It is the coach's responsibility to realize that darkness may become a factor and adjust his game plan.  When the call is made and the game is over, that is the way it is.  Maybe there is a learning experience to take from it -- don't wait to turn it on, play the game hard from the start, etc. 

 

Now, whether rules are good rules that is a different topic.  In a playoff format, I would prefer that the entire game is played.  It's for the kids, right?  The kids are there to play the game -- so every effort should be made to allow the kids to complete the game.  When I was a kid, out in the sandlot, we would suspend the game and pick it up at 8:00 am the next morning.     

Speaking from the perspective of a son playing 14u travel...

 

We drove down to Delaware from NY, were beating the #1 seed in the semifinal and the skies opened up.  They cancelled the remainder of the tournament and reverted back to seeds to determine the champion.  That happened in our favor at another tournament. I've seen comebacks thwarted by both time limits and darkness at tournaments.  I've seen coaches stall games with pitching, position and batter changes to force the clock to run out.

 

You do feel for the players in all of this, but they are just games.  Not pro games or college.  Heck, not even high school games.

 

The tournament rules are there for a purpose.  Sometimes coaches abuse them. Sometimes it's just a case of bad luck.  Ask the player if he's still dwelling on it or has he moved on.  I'm sure it was a done deal an hour or two later for him.

 

 

Saying the players gave up something is an over dramatization. The last place team spent the same time playing. No one gave up anything. They chose to play baseball.

If rules permit the umpire to declare the game over due to darkness at the end of the sixth that's where game ends.

If they chose to play baseball - they didn't give up anything in the summer. No better way to spend the hot months. 

+1

i remember a tournament my son's  team played in when he was 12.  Great competition, beat a highly touted rival team and made it to championship game.  After waiting a few hours to play due to rain delay the tournament officials decided it was too much trouble to get the field ready.  So....the teams flipped a coin for first place!  Talk about an upset kid.  We lost coin toss.  if we had won it that wouldn't have changed how he felt.  He wanted to play and win or lose based on  his team"s skill....not a coin toss.  That 2nd place trophy went in the trash!  May be off topic but a good lesson for him about rules and life.  He understood but didn't like it!

Had a tourney last year called due to rain.  We were 1-0 before the weekend was rained out.  Some teams had yet to play.  The tourney director declared the team (out of about 16 teams) that had the biggest positive run differential the winner.  One of the "weaker" teams beat up on another of the "weaker" teams and was declared the winner.  Was it fair?  No but that's life. 

 

Had another partial rain out this year.  We were 2-0 in pool play (3 games scheduled).  Some teams got 2 games in, others 1 and others none when the skies opened up.  They changed the format on Sunday to a 1 pool play game and threw out the other scores.  Everyone played 1 game and teams were seeded.  Top 2 teams (again out of 16) were invited to the playoffs.  We were 3-0 but since the 2 games were thrown out we were actually 1-0.  Unfortunately the score was something like 9-8 so our tie breakers didn't hold up and we did not make the finals.  A team that was 1-1 and another that was 1-2 made the finals.  Both teams were some of the weaker ones in the tourney but due to the 1 game playoff made the finals.  Again, that's the way life is.  its 14U kids baseball.

 

I have found as you progress in this game your priorities get straightened around. Fortunately most of the kids on my younger sons team (14u) have older kids that have been through it so we have a pretty good perspective on things.  I can guarantee you that the kids don't dwell on this type of stuff long.  I bet if I asked them what happened in both these tourneys it would take some prompting from me to get them to remember exactly how things played out. 

I agree with all the other posts but will add this is an example of why the umpire should never say "this will be the last inning".  If it goes fast, you might be able to play another.  If it's really long then you might not even be able to finish the inning and might have to revert (depending on the rules being used).

Agree may be better for ump to say specific time left and whatever can happen happens.