Chicago: HS baseball game forfeited due to "worried parents".

[YankeeFan]

The school with the nervous parent is named for Walter Payton:

A baseball game between two Chicago public high schools was canceled Saturday when some parents from a North Side school refused to let their children travel to the South Side for the game, saying they were worried about the safety of their kids.

The game between Payton College Prep and Brooks College Prep was supposed to start at 7 p.m. The Payton team had played a makeup game earlier Saturday against Von Steuben and was to head to Roseland on the city’s South Side to play Brooks.

Instead, according to Payton head coach William Wittleder, “About three, four parents [came] up to me saying they’re not letting their kids go down there.”

That prompted other parents to also refuse to let their sons play at Brooks, according to Wittleder, who said he was left with too few players to field a team. The game was declared a forfeit victory for Brooks.

Wittleder said one of the Payton parents told the others he grew up on the South Side and that the neighborhood around Brooks “isn’t what it used to be.”

http://www.suntimes.com/19764048-761/worried-parents-force-cancellation-of-payton-brooks-baseball-game.html

Principle says it wasn't about race, and blames the media for suggesting such a thing:

A North Side Chicago Public Schools principal says internal leadership problems, not “racist tendencies,” led to his baseball team forfeiting a game Saturday on the city’s South Side. The explanation came after a series of media reports, which the principal says are largely inaccurate, said that parents feared for their athletes’ safety on the South Side.

“There were other, less salacious, causes for the game’s cancellation,” Principal Tim Devine wrote in an email to the Walter Payton College Preparatory High School community. “The reasons for the cancellation stem from leadership issues within the baseball program.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-north-side-school-forfeits-baseball-game-20130428,0,6507223.story

 

[Baron Scicluna]

CM Punk weeps.

 

[Riptide]

Wait, guns are good, aren't they? Regulate that militia!

 

[LongTimeListener]

Aside from the race and class issues, let it not be forgotten that baseball parents are mother****ers on par with wrestling and cheerleading these days.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Kids these days are so soft. Why, in Babe Ruth's time, they learned to play baseball in orphanages.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Would love to know why this objection wasn't raised earlier - like when the season schedule was released. Something's fishy here.

 

[dooley_womack1]

In a related story, Payton Prep has canceled an appearance in a San Francisco tournament for fear of catching teh gay.

 

[HanSenSE]

Wait, guns are good, aren't they? Regulate that militia!

Brings new meaning to a player having a rifle for an arm ...

 

[HanSenSE]

Aside from the race and class issues, let it not be forgotten that baseball parents are mother****ers on par with wrestling and cheerleading these days.

This ... with softball parents gaining ground.

 

[Riptide]

Wait, guns are good, aren't they? Regulate that militia!

Brings new meaning to a player having a rifle for an arm ...

Rifle? Hell, they say he's got a cannon ...

 

[Batman]

Wait, guns are good, aren't they? Regulate that militia!

Brings new meaning to a player having a rifle for an arm ...

Rifle? Hell, they say he's got a cannon ...

"Isn't that just like a baseball parent? Brings a bat to a gunfight."

 

[Mystery Meat II]

This would have never happened at Pervis Ellison College Prep.

 

[Batman]

I ask this as a practical question: Is the neighborhood safe? Are these concerns valid?
I covered a high school game at a city park in a sketchy part of town yesterday (not in Chicago, but another city that often pops up on the list of "most violent cities"). Let's just say I was glad it started at noon instead of 7 p.m., especially after visiting the park's bathroom. There were no lights, and it looked like there was blood in the sink and somebody had tried to cook meth on top of the urinal. I don't want to imagine the creatures that prowl that place after dark.
At some point it's not a race issue. At some point it actually is common sense.

Edit to add: The coach of the team I was covering said they actually did play Saturday afternoon because of safety concerns. It was a playoff game so they had to play. His team was the higher seed, but they gave up homefield advantage in the series (Games 2 and 3 were to be played as a doubleheader) so they wouldn't have to go over there Friday night.

 

[waterytart]

We've been assured African-American kids don't play baseball, so it can't be about race.

 

[Stoney]

I ask this as a practical question: Is the neighborhood safe?

It's South Side Chicago, so what would be your guess?

I don't know precisely where this HS is, but I do know that suburban and whitebread parents throughout that region have long been conditioned to be scared ****less by the words "South Side." It was that way three decades ago and I'm sure it's still that way today.

And I've still zero sympathy for these complaints. They could see the schedule before the season began. If you had concerns, you should've raised it back then. If you didn't, too bad, go play the frickin game. Little Skippy won't be traumatized by having to play one baseball game in a scary neighborhood.

 

[SoCalDude]

Molly from "Mike and Molly" is a teacher at Walter Payton Elementary School in Chicago.

 

[YGBFKM]

What's the worst that can happen? These parents need to stop worrying so much about their kids and start taking advice from ill-informed strangers.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Yeah, those poor parents worried that their little darlings will get killed in the black part of town. I play the tiniest violin of sympathy.

 

[da man]

I ask this as a practical question: Is the neighborhood safe?

It's South Side Chicago, so what would be your guess?

I don't know precisely where this HS is, but I do know that suburban and whitebread parents throughout that region have long been conditioned to be scared ****less by the words "South Side." It was that way three decades ago and I'm sure it's still that way today.

And I've still zero sympathy for these complaints. They could see the schedule before the season began. If you had concerns, you should've raised it back then. If you didn't, too bad, go play the frickin game. Little Skippy won't be traumatized by having to play one baseball game in a scary neighborhood.

Well, for one thing, the game doesn't seem to appear on the schedule posted on the school's website:

Varsity


Date Opponent Time Location Score
Win,Loss,Tie
3/15/13 Brother Rice 4:30pm Brother Rice
3/16/13 Glenbrook North 12pm GBN Cancelled
3/18/13 Gordon Tech 4:30pm Seward Park
3/21/13 Evanston Town H.S. 10am ETHS
3/22/13 Lincoln 6:30pm Lincoln
3/25/13 Main South 11am Main South
3/26/13 St. Ignatius 4:30pm St. Ignatius
3/28/13 Kenwood 3pm Kenwood
3/30/13 Wells 2pm Seward Park
4/01/13 Chicago Bulls 4:45pm
Seward Park
4/05/13 Lake View 7:30pm Lake View
4/06/13 Deerfield 10:am Harlen
4/08/13 Lake View 4:30pm Seward Park
4/11/13 Lane Tech 4:30pm Lane Tech
4/12/13 Lane Tech 4:30pm Seward Park
4/13/13 Paririe Ridge 11am Paririe ridge
4/15/13 Clemente 4:30pm Clemente
4/17/13 Clemente 4:30pm Seward Park
4/18/13 Mount Carmel 4:30pm Mount Carmel
4/19/13 Shurz 4:30pm Shurz
4/20/13 Jones 10:30pm Jones
4/22/13 Shurz 4:30pm Seward Park
4/24/13 Von Steuben 4:30pm Von Steuben
4/26/13 Von Steuben 4;30pm Seward Park
4/27/13 Holy Trinity 10am Seward Park
4/29/13 Taft 4:30pm Taft
5/01/13 Taft 4:30pm Seward Park
5/0213 De LaSalle 4:30pm De LaSalle
5/03/13 Northside 4:30pm Northside
5/06/13 Northside 4:30pm Seward Park


This appears to show them playing Holy Trinity at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Obviously, I have no idea when or why that changed, but maybe it wasn't on the schedule when the season began.

 

[YGBFKM]

Yeah, those poor parents worried that their little darlings will get killed in the black part of town. I play the tiniest violin of sympathy.

You're an angry little dude. You've turned into Starman without the sense of humor.