Quote:
Originally posted by DG
Why do 3-4 players quit each team every year? I have never heard of such a thing. In 12 years of coaching baseball I had only 3 players quit during the season in this entire time.
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They'll sign up to play, get picked for a team, and then never show up to a game or practice. Most of them will never pay their registration fee. Some of them choose not to play because of the team they get on or who is coaching their team. Then some of them will show up to the first couple of games and then decide they don't like it and quit. A good number of them are from very poor home situations and they don't have anyone to encourage them to play. Sometimes they will show up without their uniform, saying they "forgot" or some lame excuse like that. I know a lot of you probably can't understand what this league goes through, but this place that I have sadly lived my entire life (and hopefully when I get out of college I can find a job far, far from here) is a backwater, po-dunk town full of nothing but rednecks and wanna-be thugs. There is absolutely no class or culture here, and no one gives a flying flip if baseball succeeds.
As tough as it is to get kids to play, it's even tougher to get umpires. Like I said, I'm the only umpire they've got that is actually a real umpire that has at least some amount of training. I'm guessing that the league president, myself, and maybe one or two of the coaches are the only people in the entire league that have actually read the rulebook. We actually had an umpire in one game that was unsure of a call, and ASKED THE CROWD WHAT THEY THOUGHT. At least two of the guys that umpire have done jail time for DUI or drugs or something like that, and their umpiring checks are for nothing but drugs and booze.
Sadly, I couldn't make this stuff up. I can't imagine a league more backwards, ridiculous and apathetic than the one I umpire games for. And as much as I hate it for the kids that actually do care, the league deserves whatever happens to it. Thank God this is my last summer at home.