In the Minors (boys 9-10yrs old) the team Big T plays for won the regular season 14-1. So proud of these boys. Now comes the tournament, it is double elimination. The one team that beat us is stacked which means they took the best kids out of their league and put them on one team. We don't have but one team. I am against the "stacking" of teams. It is not fair to the kids. You have one team that dominates and then one team that is ok and one team that may not win a game. What is that teaching your kids? We have one team and a couple of our kids have not played ball since t-ball. All of our kids play and have equal time in the field. Our coaches are very good with our kids too. They don't yell and act ugly, they don't fuss and berate the kids. They do coach and fuss if they are not paying attention but they also encourage and love these kids. There are only 3 or 4 kids that would make the "stacked" team in this league and Big T is not one of them. The thing is, our kids work together and encourage each other, they hug each other when they make a big play or big hit. It is really funny to watch.
So on to our Big night of baseball. Our tournament was double elimination and the "stacked" team beat us so we had to play them two more times. We won the first game after they tried to take our kids out at the plate and at second base by playing dirty at their coaches direction. I am all for trying hard to win but I don't like playing dirty. Trying to knock kids down and hitting them in the face. This coach is not a good sport at all and he is teaching his players this too. That is so sad. We had to play them again the next night for the championship. They come out right off the bat and say that we are going to play a 2 1/2 hour time limit. Our regular time is 1 1/2 hour. Our kids will not go to 2 1/2 hours till they move to Jr. on the big field. This coach is trying everything possible to beat us. We have seen him tell his kids to step in so they get hit by the pitch just to get on base. He had his kids chanting at our pitcher that he could not pitch and chanting ugly things at out kids. Well, we won!!!! Their kids were very ugly going through the line to shake our kids hands and some did not even shake hands. That is a t-ball kids response to losing. I am sorry I am big on sportsmanship and this guys and his kids have been everything but sportsman like. Our kids have always behaved with class and win or lose they always go through and say good game and they mean it. We beat this team 3 times in the regular season and the first time we beat them the one kid went through the line and said, "you suck" to each one of our kids. That is a poor sport! Last night when we won he did not even shake our kids hand or clap for our kids when they got their pin for winning. If our kids would have lost, it would have been sad but I don' t think our kids would have acted that way. I know if mine had I would have snatched him up.
I have used this as a teaching moment for my kids. I have talked to them about sportsmanship and how it is easy to win but it is hard to be a "good" winner. We have talked about being a gracious person and a gracious winner. I hope and pray that my kids will not ever behave the way these kids have. I don't think they will because dear hubby and I try to set good examples but, so much of how our kids act is what they see other kids doing.
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