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Making Danny Almonte proud ...

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Gator, Aug 18, 2015.

  1. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    You'd be ok with this if your kid was on the team? I sure as hell wouldn't.
     
  2. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I think it's bullshit, but I would be more upset with the tourney organizers. This is so easily foreseeable, I'm surprised it doesn't happen way more often. Actually it does happen more often, just in smaller and less noticeable amounts. Play a double-elimination tournament and this goes away.

    Shit, it's the whole reason the World Cup schedules teams to play at the same time in the final day of group play. If you give people a competitive angle, they're going to exploit it.
     
  3. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    I gotta say, I'm fine being slow to understand how this could possibly be met with a shrug of the shoulders when we're talking about kids' ball.
     
  4. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    And yet you want to run 12-year-olds up the flagpole in the local paper when they make an error.

    You're smart and make a great deal of sense.
     
  5. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    I can only answer that with this.

    [​IMG]
     
  6. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    You're right about the tournament set up but this isn't the World Cup, it's kids softball.

    It's one thing to let kids who don't normally play much start and rest your best kids, but they made a mockery of the game. Teaching kids to lose intentionally is brutal, I can't imagine being a part of it as a parent or a coach.
     
  7. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    So here is where the WS got itself in trouble: The tiebreaker procedure calls for the first measure used to be runs-allowed ratio in all games of pool play (total number of runs allowed divided by number of innings played on defense). So, I can't tell exactly how many innings each team played because of the mercy rule (I don't know where the box scores are), but both Southeast and Central (the team that got the scroogie) allowed four runs ... so if everyone knew already that Southeast had played more innings for whatever reason, then they'd be sitting pretty as long as they kept it at four runs but would be hurting if that number got to five, which means they badly needed the shutout.

    BUT ... and here is where it gets screwy ... like the NFL, the system only advances one team through that tiebreaker step and then has the other two start the tiebreaker process again. And in that case, West's head-to-head win over Central reigns supreme.

    So, if you're Southeast, you know that if you allow one run, you're probably gone.

    And if you're West, you know that you can play your hearts out and lose, say, 2-1 and you're gone because of the tiebreaker.

    But if you prearrange the 8-0 final, you both advance.

    It's far less than ideal. But given that choice, I would say many and probably most teams would take the guarantee.

    And that's a bullshit tournament format for that reason.
     
  8. StaggerLee

    StaggerLee Well-Known Member

    A team my son played on this summer did this (to some extent). Seeding was determined by a run differential, and our team was 1-1 going into our final pool play game. Can't remember how it actually would have came out, but had we won our third game in pool play, we would have been put into the top half of the bracket which featured easily the best team in the field. So instead of playing our third game in pool play, the head coach decided to forfeit the game, saying we didn't have enough players (4 of the coaches' kids stayed home). It dropped us into the bottom half of the bracket and we advanced to the finals to play the one team we were avoiding by forfeiting. They beat the tar out of us, but kids got second place in the tournament instead of a second-round elimination.

    It didn't really bother me that he opted for the forfeit instead of playing. At the time, we were banged up and probably would have lost that game anyway. What it did was save our pitching and allowed our kids to rest up and come back strong the next day. The kids were OK with the forfeit too. The tournament came on the heels of us playing four games in five days in league play.
     
  9. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    They should have booted your ass out of the tournament.
     
  10. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    JC, they would boot at least one team a week from every tournament in the country if they did that. It's a very common tactic.
     
  11. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    You play to win the game. Herm Edwards (and James Harrison) would be proud.
     
  12. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    So be it, it's disgraceful.

    A double knockout would solve this but so would a little integrity.
     
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