The Joys of JV

[RKBUmp]

Originally Posted by Andy

You may consider it an act of sportsmanship, but there are some (losing) coaches that consider it being "shown up". Their attitude is that they don't want the winning team to give them outs, they want their kids to fight through and earn the outs. I have seen heated discussions from one dugout to the other when these tactics are used.

I have seen both also, watched a coach go ballistic on daughters coach because he had a runner step off base. She actually forfeited and walked off the field and that was her exact argument, she wanted her players to earn the outs. Only problem was he had already had everyone batting opposite, was not taking extra bases, had never attempted to steal a base the entire game and they still couldn't get an out. The bleeding has to be stopped at some point one way or another.

Have also had a coach that refused to back off after they had already scored some 24 runs in a single inning. Stealing on every pitch, taking extra bases whenever possible and advancing on every error by the defense. I attempted to talk to him about backing it down a little, but he said he had a coach go crazy on him for having girls step off, so he wasn't going to let up anymore.

No one learns anything in those blowout games. The losing team is simply frustrated and nothing they do works and they just continue to compound their errors. The winning team gets lazy and takes chances they would never take against a good team.