Stiff Of The Week: Youth Baseball League of New Haven CT

This story is receiving lots of coverage so I'll keep it quick and opinionated. This 9 year old child has been ordered not to pitch by the Youth Baseball League of New Haven Connecticut. Is it because he was doctoring the ball? Perhaps he was wild and erratic and hit a lot of other kids.....or maybe he is just so good that none of the other kids can hit him. Yeah, that's the reason, the kid has talent and can throw the ball at 40 mph at age 9. He is so feared that an opposing team actually forfeited a game rather than send their players to the plate to face him.

I played Little League baseball as a child and as you would expect the talent is pretty spread out. You've got the kids who obviously have been practicing since they could hold a bat and glove and the ones who are either being forced to play or are just casually interested. There is always the one or two pitchers that you don't want to see because they throw hard or are erratic. But you still went up there and took your cuts. I can only imagine what my Dad would've said to me if I chose to not play in a game because I was afraid of another player.

What message does this teach the kids in this league anyway? If you are really good at something then you will be punished. Or does it teach that whining and being a little pussy will get you what you want in life. I can tell you from traveling the last 4 days that there are a lot of spoiled twenty something douche bags out there and you can see how they got that way. They were pandered to their whole childhood and when they didn't get their way the cried to Mommy until they got what they wanted.

The logical solution (other than just letting the kid pitch) would be to advance him to the next level although he could get shelled. Throwing 40mph against 9-11 year olds is one thing but at teenager would probably knock the cover off of it. Of course there are lawyers involved now and who knows how expensive this will end up being for everyone. More than likely the league will end up disbanding and now hundreds of kids won't get to play. Either way it's bull shit, if the kid meets the age requirement than he can play and play whatever position he wants. Otherwise there should be more specific criteria listed on the application. So Youth Baseball League of New Haven enjoy your time as Stiff of the Week on I&TSG blog!!