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Rules Don't Always Seem Fair

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 6, 2008

Among the many intended benefits of Little League, or any similar sports league, is giving the men and women of tomorrow an opportunity to learn some potentially tough life lessons.

Two eighth-grade softball players in Dade City earlier this week ran smack into something we adults hear every day - rules are rules.

I just had a full bottle of sunblock confiscated at airport security. Apparently you can do catastrophic damage with a bottle of SPF 70 these days.

Or not.

But Rules Are Rules

Here's the rundown of what happened to this particular Dade City Little League softball team: The girls were advancing through the Tournament of Champions and were set to play in the championship game Tuesday night, the same night as two of the players' graduation.

Realizing the impending conflict, team coach Roger Mills asked the New Tampa coach if it was possible to move the game to a different day and they agreed to the change for the sake of competition.

But the decision had to go through the Little League District Office, where it was met with the league rule that if a team has seven or more players, it must play or forfeit.

Well, Dade City - minus the two girls who were graduating - had enough players to field a team. The game went on as planned and Dade City lost decisively.

If this was a movie, Dade City would have won with a walk-off without its star pitcher. ... And I would have just batted my eyelashes and been allowed to take my sunblock in my carry-on.

Unfortunately, the rules don't always work in our favor.

But more often than not, they exist for a reason.

Rescheduling a game is not as simple as two coaches agreeing to do it.

You have to take into account rescheduling umpires and possibly concessions workers, field availability, and all the families of the players from both teams would have to rearrange their schedules to get their children to the game.

However, it's understandable that the Dade City team was upset.

The two girls played all the way through the tournament and helped the team earn a berth in the championship game only to have it played without them.

Decision Time

They weren't missing the game for a party or a vacation - it was for their eighth-grade graduation. Their parents were forced to make a decision between the two events and, thank goodness, graduation was the priority.

All is not lost for the Dade City girls. While that tournament ended, all-star season is about to begin so there is an opportunity to play on, even if they couldn't all be there for the finale of the Tournament of Champions.

What saddens me the most about this situation is that it sounds like the rest of the girls didn't believe they could win without their two teammates.

For all the adult lessons learned here, childlike optimism seems like it got the brush-off for harsh realism.

But that's all part of growing up.

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