[greymule]

Every year I (reluctantly) work a few co-ed business league games, and sometimes I see play that, though within the rules of the game, is to me unsportsmanlike.

The male players range from men who play in some of the lower-level township leagues to men in their seventies to men who last played ball in LL. The women range from good "gym class" players to purely picnic level. Many of the players are obviously simply "warm bodies" out for fun or filling in slots. A few have a little talent, but the overall quality is very low.

But then there are the heroes who think that games between teams made up of such players actually prove something.

To me, when a guy who plays in a couple of men's leagues takes advantage of an inexperienced woman who is standing in front of 2B without the ball, slides in hard but legally, and trips her up so he can take off for 3B when the ball gets away, that's unsportsmanlike.

When an old man comes to bat and the coach wants time out so he can bring the outfield way in and place everybody to best advantage, that's unsportsmanlike.

When the runners have stopped with the ball in the infield, and a guy takes off for home on the throw to the pitcher because he knows the woman they hid behind the plate won't be able to make the play at home, that's unsportsmanlike.

In the situation described at the beginning of this thread, I would not have appealed the BR who did not go to 1B. I would not do "anything legal" to win in a game like that. I wouldn't hit back up the middle if I thought the pitcher might not be good enough to protect himself. I wouldn't tag some woman who stepped off the base thinking time out had been called. Maybe it's because it so disgusted me, when my son played LL, to see managers pulling every trick they could think of to gain an advantage, like using a loophole in the league rule to get around the last batter in the lineup by having the pitcher hit him with a pitch. Why? So they could go home and write in their little book that they coached their team to another victory?