{"id":1381,"date":"2016-03-29T14:35:17","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T14:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/?p=1381"},"modified":"2016-03-29T14:35:17","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T14:35:17","slug":"27-a-score-to-settle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/27-a-score-to-settle\/","title":{"rendered":"#27: A Score to Settle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"little-league-750x400\"<\/a><\/p>\n


\nMy brother Jay is managing a minor league baseball team in the town\u2019s Little League this year.
\nHe came over to my house right after the league held the player draft, when the managers and their coaching staffs pick the kids that fill out the team\u2019s roster, and he was exhausted because it had been a long night.
\nI asked him, \u201cHow was the draft?\u201d
\nMy brother said, \u201cMan, it was intense. We held try-outs over the last two weekends. There were hundreds of kids that turned out and all the managers had to rank each kid on a scale of 1-to-10 in several categories based on their running, throwing, fielding and hitting ability.\u201d
\nHe continued, \u201cAfter that, me and my staff held meetings to go over our notes, compare our ratings, and discuss our draft strategy. Then tonight we all met and had a lottery where each manager drew a number that determined their position in the draft. Once the draft started it got really competitive because everyone was obviously trying to go after the best players, based on their evaluations.\u201d
\nI said to my brother, \u201cWow, that\u2019s a lot of work. How do you think you did??\u201d
\nHe said, \u201cI think I put together a solid team. We should be pretty good this year.
\nI drafted some really talented ballplayers.\u201d
\nI said, \u201cGreat, I hope you and the kids are successful and win a lot of games.\u201d
\nMy brother said, \u201cWell, actually no. They don\u2019t keep score in the minor leagues.\u201d
\nI chuckled and said, \u201cOh come on. What do you mean they don\u2019t keep score?\u201d
\nHe said, \u201cThey don\u2019t keep score. We can\u2019t count the runs.\u201d
\nI said, \u201cYou gotta be kidding me, right? If you don\u2019t keep score, how do you determine who wins the game?\u201d
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t, so neither team wins or loses.\u201d
\nI said, \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous. I never heard of such a thing! If no one wins or loses how are you going to determine the standings?\u201d
\nHe said, \u201cThey don\u2019t keep won-loss records, so there are no standings.\u201d
\nI shook my head and said, \u201cSo, tell me again, why did the league hold this draft?\u201d
\n\u201cSo the coaches could pick the best players and put together the strongest team possible.\u201d
\nI said, \u201cBut if you don\u2019t keep score, and there are no standings, why do you need to get the best players on your team? Who are you going to beat? You\u2019re no better than anyone else.\u201d
\nMy brother said, \u201cUhhh\u2026 I don\u2019t know\u2026I never really thought about that.\u201d
\nI said, \u201cWell think about this\u2026 No matter how good your team plays, the very best you can ever do is end-up in a scoreless tie\u2026 and, not only that, in the end, you\u2019ll still be tied for last-place with every other team who hasn\u2019t won a single game all season long either.\u201d
\nHe snapped. \u201cStop it, you\u2019re making me depressed.\u201d
\n\u201cNo, I\u2019m making SENSE!…<\/em> which seems to be in short supply lately.\u201d
\nThe world has gone mad with political correctness.
\nIf there are no winners and losers where is the incentive for these kids to succeed? Without competition, where is the motivation to excel? To improve and make yourself better?
\nWhy bother even to play?
\nI can imagine a manager pulling a kid aside before he leaves the on-deck circle and instructing him\u2026 \u201cOK, if you get on base, I want you to try and steal second.\u201d
\n\u201cWhy, coach?\u201d
\n\u201cSo you can put yourself into scoring position.\u201d
\n\u201cWhy, coach?\u201d
\n\u201cTo give us a better chance of scoring a run.\u201d
\n\u201cWhy do we need a run, coach? It won\u2019t make a difference. We don\u2019t keep score.\u201d
\nAnd the coach throws up his hands in exasperation and says, \u201cI don\u2019t know what to tell you. I don\u2019t have an answer for that\u2026 You know what, just forget it.\u201d
\nHow much more can we pamper these children?
\nPretty soon you\u2019ll see an umpire yell, \u201cStrike three, you\u2019re out!\u201d and the kid will stand in the batter\u2019s box, pouting like a baby, and yell into the stands (with a privileged, haughty Veruca Salt accent) \u201cFather, it\u2019s not fair. Why can\u2019t I have four strikes?\u201d<\/em>
\nAnd the umpire will say, \u201cBecause you only get three, kid.\u201d
\nStomping his foot, he\u2019ll scream out defiantly, \u201cBut father, tell him I want four!\u201d<\/em>
\nAnd eventually there will be no more balls and strikes.
\nWhy? Because they let little girls play on the teams now\u2026 and little girls don\u2019t have little balls, so they\u2019ll feel left out or excluded somehow\u2026 lawsuits to follow.
\nThey\u2019ll have to call them strikes and \u2018non-strikes.\u2019
\nAnd the same will be true for the little boys, because they don\u2019t have a \u2018batter\u2019s box.\u2019
\nAnd that white thing on the pitcher\u2019s mound called a \u2018rubber?\u2019 Good heavens, we can\u2019t have impressionable children subjected to such vulgar slang, they\u2019ll be traumatized!
\nMy brother did inform me that all of the managers are required to keep a box score to make sure that every single kid plays the same amount of innings.
\nThe exact same. No matter how good the kid is\u2026 or how much he sucks out loud.
\nThis is a new thing now\u2026 this mandate that everyone needs to be treated equally; that no individual can be any better or any worse than anyone else.
\nIt\u2019s like that with everything now\u2026
\nSure, let\u2019s go ahead and let women become Navy Seals and firefighters.
\nYou might say, \u201cBut women are different than men and they can\u2019t possibly pass all the physical tests of strength and endurance that are required for those jobs.\u201d
\nThat doesn\u2019t matter\u2026 They just lower the standards for everyone to make sure the women pass. And why not? After all, they only face what are potentially life and death situations on a daily basis. What could possibly go wrong?
\nAnd don\u2019t stop there\u2026
\nLet\u2019s allow ugly people to enter beauty pageants.
\nLet\u2019s encourage blind people to perform major surgery.
\nLet\u2019s let fat people figure skate in the Olympic Games.
\nHell, let\u2019s elect a President to run this country who has no idea what the fuck he\u2019s doing\u2026 Oh, wait a second, we\u2019ve already done that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22,23,24,25,32,69,192,213,214,215,216,217,218],"class_list":["post-1381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-paul-dangelo","tag-dangelo","tag-comedy","tag-comedian","tag-comic","tag-paul-dangelo-paul-dangelo-comedy","tag-political-correctness","tag-little-league","tag-baseball","tag-minor-league","tag-manager","tag-coach","tag-children"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p614ww-mh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1381"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1384,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381\/revisions\/1384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdangelo.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}