Is this high school blog post appropriate?

Many people there do, 'gola.

This is a bit overboard, but not ridiculously brutal or anything.

 

OK, to come back and defend yourself, then come back again and backtrack, that's pretty weak.

On second thought, you gotta let this go. Or write saying that the pitcher did a good job keeping his composure during the situation. Not to put a "positive spin" on everything, just sayin'.

 

This was written by a supposedly "professional" journalist?
It reads like one high school sophomore making fun of another sophomore.

Talk about Bush League.

 

That was ... unfortunate.

 

well, maybe the pitcher should have gotten the most bang for his buck.

 

Luckily, we don't blog at our papers. But, should a blogger ever comment on another person's comment? That just seems like you are working yourself into an on-line fight.

 

1) When I read the blog post the first time, I thought it was written by a hs student, too. I didn't make note of the byline. For a professional writer to ridicule a hs player is just wrong. You can fault the strategy, but don't make it personal. Just way too over the top. And suggesting the pitcher should throw at the kid's head? Wow.

2) I don't think he understands that the term "Busch League" is really "bush league." Which further undercuts his professionalism.

3) Anybody else struck by how many comments a hs baseball game has engendered? We're not talking football or basketball here. Some serious fan interest.

4) I'm not surprised the team in question was from The Colony. My experience has been their teams often push the envelope where rules, fouls, sportsmanship, etc. are involved.

 

I can think of instances where it would be appropriate. If the kid slugged an umpire or something. It'd have to be a pretty major incident, but I could see times to do it.

This certainly didn't fit the bill, however.

 

I don't have a problem with a writer being critical of a high school athlete. Then again, I've never agreed with the whole policy of declining to name the kicker who misses a field goal in a box score, ignoring the kid who walked six batters, etc.

But I do have a problem with two things here: one, the writer's tone was incredibly juvenile, and two, where's the reaction from those being criticized?

 

The entire base of our prep coverage is that you don't hold up a high school athlete for ridicule.

 

I just wondered why the pitcher didn't throw at the back of the dude's head and solve the problem.

 

I have no problem with what Adam wrote. The one question I have is would anyone be as critical of him if he wrote "first baseman", "No. 3 hitter" or whatever, but just didn't name the player?

Why I don't have a problem with what he wrote is because that's what he observed, and probably what everyone else in the park saw that night, too.

There's calling out a high school athlete and there's not. I think most who have covered preps know the difference.

In my opinion, not naming the kid who misses a critical in front of 3,000-4,000 people is silly, and could undermine your credibility. He missed it. By not writing about it doesn't mean we can un-ring that bell.

As for using the term Bush, Busch league, who the hell cares. Busch is pretty weak beer anyway, but a great baseball family.

And just for more argument fodder, I recently had a coach come up to me and tell me that when I covered preps while he was a high school athlete, he was afraid to talk to me because he was sure I was going to write about him fathering a child out of wedlock.

I asked him where he got such a notion, and he said his coaches told the team that if they did anything wrong that we would write about it.

I told him I didn't think a responsible media member would have done that story. Discuss.