More wonderful youth coaching stories

[TruBlueCowboy]

This is sad. Ya know, I've watched kids play T-ball and that is the most uncoordinated spectacle you will ever watch. I can't believe someone would take it so seriously. Maybe it touches a nerve in me more than others because I have a brother with down syndrome, but someone needs to slap that coach around.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...x.html?cnn=yes

'He wanted to win'
Police: Coach paid kid to hurt disabled teammate
Posted: Friday July 15, 2005 5:04PM
Updated: Friday July 15, 2005 5:04PM

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A T-ball coach allegedly paid one of his players $25 to hurt an 8-year-old mentally disabled teammate so he wouldn't have to put the boy in the game, police said Friday.

Mark R. Downs Jr., 27, of Dunbar, is accused of offering one of his players the money to hit the boy in the head with a baseball, police said. Witnesses told police Downs didn't want the boy to play in the game because of his disability.

Police said the boy was hit in the head and in the groin with a baseball just before a game, and didn't play, police said.

"The coach was very competitive," state police Trooper Thomas B. Broadwater said. "He wanted to win."

Downs has an unpublished telephone number and couldn't immediately be reached for comment Friday. It was unclear whether he had an attorney.

He was arrested and arraigned Friday on charges including criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault and corruption of minors. He was released from jail on an unsecured bond.

The alleged assault happened June 27 in North Union Township, about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, authorities said.

The boy's mother asked state police to investigate her son's injuries because she suspected Downs wanted to keep the boy off the field, despite a league rule that required each player to participate in three innings a game, Broadwater said.

Eric Forsythe, the president of the R.W. Clark Youth Baseball League, said Downs had two daughters on the T-ball team.

League organizers investigated accusations against Downs before the T-ball season ended earlier this month but could not prove that he did anything wrong. If Downs is convicted of any crime, he won't be allowed to be a coach next year, Forsythe said. The league is not affiliated with Little League International.

[jackrussell]

I'd figure this thread would have generated a bazillion replies.


Umpire hurt in altercation at youth tournament game

LAST UPDATE: 7/6/2005 10:19:28 AM

HUDSON, Ohio (AP) - An umpire at a youth baseball tournament game in Hudson suffered a broken hand and a black eye in an altercation with a parent. Fifty-seven-year-old Howard Claflin (KLAY'-flihn) of Cuyahoga Falls will have surgery on his hand.

Hudson police say he was assaulted Friday at the baseball field at Hudson High School. Claflin had ejected a 14-year-old boy for kicking a batting helmet shortly after the umpire had warned him for throwing it. Police say a first-base coach was the boy's father. The coach and the umpire had an altercation.

Meanwhile, the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office yesterday conducted an autopsy on Robert Abrams. He's a 40-year-old Springfield Township man who died after a fight near a tournament game at Springfield High School near Akron. That fight apparently erupted as some people attending a game Friday objected to paying a five-dollar fee for parking.