Baseball stands ordered torn down for being better than softball's

They have these amazing things now called nets. They stop foul balls in their tracks. Lots of fields -- even high school fields -- have them. Wonderful invention, the net.

 

but but but but but but but ... they said they had to build the beautiful snazzy baseball seats because they were behind a chain link fence!!!!!

 

Something tells me that in Kansas, they'd call bullshit on this and say, "Nope, this is one high school so you get one athletic team."

Which would be a lot more logical than a lot of other things Kansas has done lately.

 

Uh, that concept is incorrect. You don't know what you're talking about. As usual.

 

Because trying to watch baseball through chain link fences does suck. So you take down the fence and replace it with a net. Or you put it far enough down the baseline that you don't get drilled with the nasty, late-swing foul balls. I've seen lots of high school fields where parents have built a little party deck or something like the Plymouth set-up on the right side of the first base dugout. It's no more dangerous than sitting in similar seats at a major league game.

 

And as usual, you say that people are wrong and you don't actually offer anything to back it up.

 

http://www.nfhs.org/content.aspx?id=6922

Yep, the National Federation of State High School Associations doesn't know what they're talking about.

 

Shit, and I thought I got nasty in my little play wars.

 

Did I miss something?

 

Baseball and softball are two different sports.

 

It's a good point:

"The U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation following an anonymous complaint. Ultimately, officials demanded that the seating and scoreboard be torn down because the upgrades are superior to Plymouth's girls' softball facilities. The boys' seating is also not handicap accessible, which is a separate violation of government regulations."

Who demanded this remedy, and how did they communicate it?

Why don't we have a name, and why don't we have a document with this "demand" we can read from?

 

I want to look more into this, because a lot of this seems like bullshit.

Obviously, it's true the school is tearing out the baseball stands. But did the OCR really order the district to do that? I doubt it. Did the OCR note there could be a possible Title IX violation? Possibly. Did it issue a citation? Maybe it was a warning. Was this reporter fed a lot of bullshit by upset baseball parents? Oh yeah. Could the issue have been that the seating wasn't handicapped-accessible. Maybe.

It's interesting, too, that I've seen zero other local media outlets pick this up. Not to say there isn't something to this, but I've got a lot more questions than answers coming out of that "report."