Confessions of a 12 Year Old Little Leaguer (And they aren't mine...LOLOL)

Two weeks ago, I was reading an article in NJ.com about a small Charter School that was crushing their opponents on their way to a State Championship. At the end of the article there was a link to other articles and one in particular intrigued me, so I opened the link and read the article…the title was “I was a bird-flipping Little League menace—and it’s time to come clean” written by Steve Politi in August of 2019 about Steve Politi.  The title alone was enough to encourage me to read it.

            The premise of the story is that a young Mr. Politi flipped a double bird to the umpire after being called out after thinking that he hit the game tying 3 run homer in a 1980’s something Little League game. Following being called out by the umpire, Mr. Politi turned to him and shot him the double bird. In the article, Mr. Politi explains what caused the dreaded double bird flipping incident (DDBFI as Mr. Politi refers to in the article). Apparently, the opposing coach decided to INTENTIONALLY walk him with two runners on and two outs in the bottom of the 7th inning (I’ll look at intentional walks in Little League at another time…LOL). Now Mr. Politi sees his chance of being a 12-year-old hero disappearing as he won’t be able to have a chance to put the ball in play   Mr. Politi let the first two pitches sail by but on the third intentional walk pitch Mr. Politi steps across home plate and smacks the ball into rightfield. Little did the 12-year-old Mr. Politi know that once he stepped ACROSS home plate, he was automatically out…. Rule 6.06(a) states: “A batter is out for illegal action when— (a) He hits a ball with one or both feet on the ground entirely outside the batter’s box. Comment: If a batter hits a ball fair or foul while out of the batter’s box, he shall be called out. Umpires should pay particular attention to the position of the batter’s feet if he attempts to hit the ball while he is being intentionally passed. A batter cannot jump or step out of the batter’s box and hit the ball.”  Obviously, a minor fact that young Mr. Politi did not know.

The rest of the article goes on to explain how Mr. Politi decides that it is time to right this terrible wrong and how he goes about doing so. In the end he finds the umpire, who currently lives on the same street that Mr. Politi grew up on so many years ago, and speaks to him about the incident and much to Mr. Politi’s relief the umpire, while recognizing who Mr. Politi is due to his writing on N J.com, he did not remember the infamous double bird event.  They spoke a bit more and caught up on shared history and, according to Mr. Politi, the 1980 something double bird incident was put in the rearview mirror. In one of the final sentences of the article Mr. Politi states: “If you treat an umpire disrespectfully now, it’s not only a bad look in the short term. It might bother you for years.” 

While I’ll admit that I wrote this for some levity there is also a message here. I can’t think of any incidents that date back to my playing days where I may have done something I regretted almost 50 years later; however, I will admit, while coaching to saying things to game officials in the heat of battle that I later regretted, the difference between Mr. Politi and me is that he was a 12 year old in a game that he viewed as being “life or death”, which we all did as 12 year old’s, while I was an adult who knew better and when I realized my mistake I immediately corrected myself either during the game or right after game. 

As I have stated in blog posts in the past, League officials have to ensure that the game officials are being protected. In January 2021 I wrote a blog article dealing with the youth sports officials and quoted the following: “According to a September 20, 2018 FOX News story, 80% of High School and youth sports officials quit before their 3rd year on the job and the reason for this trend is the abusive behavior by parents and coaches”.  This is the reason that local leagues are having issues with games being played, the lack of game officials.

Again, while I mentioned that I wrote this for some levity, I would also like to recommend that local recreation leagues ensure that coaches know the rules of the game that they are coaching, and attempts should be made to educate the parents to the rules of the games that their children are playing.   This could simply be done by hosting a pre-season meeting for parents to go over the basic rules of whatever game their child is playing. This would allow the parents to gain a basic understanding of the rules of the game and make the season run smoother for everyone involved.