Published: June 09, 2009 11:24 pm      

What we don’t want to hear does hurt us

What follows are authentic dialogues we here in the sports department have had with some coaches while they are calling the scores of their youth baseball and softball games in to be reported in the paper.

Us: “Score of your game?”

Coach: “Well, it was 17-1, but I’m just going to report 14-3.”

Us: “Hold on there a second. Not that I still don’t have a problem with it, but if you want to take runs away from your team, that’s your perogative, I guess. But how can you give the other team two runs they didn’t score?”

Coach: “Well, I just don’t want the kids from the other team to feel bad. This makes it look like the game was a little closer than it was.”

Oh, how generous of him to do that.

For some reason, 13 and 14 seem to be the magic numbers when youth coaches go humanitarian on us, I don’t know why that is. Maybe because while a 13 or 14 isn’t as high as a 17, they’re both still high enough to get the message across that the game was a rout. I always think of the Vic Morrow character in “The Bad News Bears” when this happens. Yeah, yeah, Coach, you’re here for the welfare of the kids, but you coach the game with the same fervor Teddy Roosevelt used to get the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill.

Bully!

Look, if you’re not going to report the actual score of the game, fine, that’s a decision you have to make; just don’t include us in the process. If you’re giving us a phony score, just give it to us; don’t tell us beforehand. And please ... don’t give us a runs-by-inning linescore and then tell us you don’t want to put the actual score in. It’s too late for that, because our nightly deadline doesn’t afford us the time to fabricate an inning-by-inning linescore and make it add up correctly after we’ve already been given the actual linescore that does.

Or, there is, “11 to 1, but it was worse than that.”

As Jeff Landes said the other night, “At what point do you start telling the truth?”

Then, of course, there is the increasingly on-going non-report of the losing pitcher, which I am convinced is a direct descendent of the participation trophy, which continues to set society back with each passing day since its inception. It was bad enough when the non-report of the losing pitcher was limited to little league, but now we’ve had a few instances in which a coach didn’t want to give us the battery members of the losing team in a Hot Stove League game, because he didn’t want the kids to feel bad about one of them being the losing pitcher.

Heck, if I was ever the losing the pitcher in a little league or Hot Stove game, I figured that would have been news in itself, since I was never allowed to pitch. But I thought it would have been pretty cool if everybody in town saw my name in the paper and thought that I had. I just find it completely impossible to believe a kid is going to be scarred if his or her name is in the paper for being the losing pitcher in a baseball game, but what do I know?

Oh, and here’s a new one ...

Us: “Winning pitcher?”

Coach: “Jimmy Johnson, and he had 12 strikeouts.”

Us: “OK, losing pitcher?”

Coach: “I’m not going to put the losing pitcher in.”

“No, of course not,” you think to yourself.

Coach: “But put in there that Tommy Thompson had 10 strikeouts for (the losing team).”

Us: “Beg pardon?”

Coach: “I don’t want anybody to know he was the losing pitcher ...”

The fans in the stands must have taken a vow of silence or watched the game blindfolded.

Coach: “... but I think everybody should know he had 10 strikeouts.”

I think Shaggy of Scooby Doo fame said it best when he said, “Zoinks!”

Tommy Thompson and his 10 strikeouts made the next morning’s edition by the way, along with the LP to the left of his name.

And one last request: Please, when you’re calling in a game, know that we here in the sports department are happy to hear from you, and that we want to talk to you — not the three kids who are standing next to you while you’re on the phone, filling you in on all the details you either forgot, didn’t write down, or can’t read in the scorebook. Not only is this very confusing, but it also keeps us away from the other folks who are trying to call in their scores, but can’t get through because all of our lines are busy.

Honestly, we really do enjoy reporting your scores — some of which are even true.

Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.