Character AWOL at Bridgewater State College

I am incensed.

Livid, almost.

I am so upset I have stopped everything I was doing, and still need to do, to write this.

This is no small matter, my friend. My day started at 2:30 a.m. and is far from over before it begins again tomorrow morning at 2:30 a.m. which is now just five and a half hours away. Dinner will have to wait until tomorrow night. This is more important.

Tuesday morning, I reported on a college baseball game between Bridgewater State and Newbury. The final score was 57-1, Bridgewater State, in a seven inning game.

I chastised B-S's baseball manager for running up the score. I anointed him with the (fictitious) "Tubby Raymond Award" - he was the former football coach at Delaware who was notorious for running up scores and doing all he could to embarrass the opposition.

I stated that the manager was this week's recipient of the "I've never met an opponent I couldn't embarrass" Award (again, not a real award).

Well.......didn't this bring an email to the station.

I'll save the author of the email the embarrassment of revealing his identity lest the world know that Neanderthal thinking is alive and well in at least one DNA strain in the Commonwealth.

But please, allow me to lift quotes from said email.

Let's start with.....oh, how about the entire thing? Why not!

First, I should note, the email was sent to Gil, an innocent bystander in all of this.

Quote:

"Mr. Santos,

Not sure if you were the sportscaster this morning that scolded to Bridgewater State Coach for the 57-1 score, but the person who did this probably should have gotten the facts before editorializing.  My nephew, who is a Bridgewater alum and former baseball player sent me the following response, when I told him what I had heard on the radio this morning:

That's BS. (AUTHOR'S NOTE HERE: In this regard, BS does NOT stand for Bridgewater State) They should get their facts straight.

The Newbury Athletic Director BEGGED for the game to put them on the map. So BSC accepted.
The bench was emptied - with the exception of pitchers. The problem is - THEY HAVE NO DECENT PITCHING - so they cannot throw their 4 serviceable guys into a random position and risk injury.

Bridgewater Hit - but did not run it up. They played station to station. If the ball did not go over the fence - it was a single ONLY. They had 6 consecutive hits that would have been doubles or triples where the kids were held up at first.
Should Newbury field a team?   They had 7 errors, 4 hit batters and 20 walks. That's 31 base runners.
Our coach called the Athletic Director in the third inning to come to the field because he thought kids from the other team were going to get hurt.

Then they asked the Newbury coach if he wanted to call off the game and he said NO!
Newbury started walking guys when the BSC coach told them not to swing."

Unquote.

Let's start with getting the facts right.

Gee, I would say I hit the bulls eye. Why? Well, let's examine the Cro-Magnon mentality of this email.

"...The Newbury Athletic Director BEGGED for the game to put them on the map. So BSC accepted."

Mistake number one.

A good athletic director would have the courage to say, albeit politely, "I'm sorry, you will have to make a spectacle of yourself at someone else's expense. We have more pride and professionalism than that here at Bridgewater State College."

Well, I ASSUME that's what a good athletic director would do. I could be wrong. I'll ask those I know.

"...Our coach called the Athletic Director in the third inning to come to the field because he thought kids from the other team were going to get hurt."

Mistake number two (and these are numbered such only because I am lifting them from the email from top to bottom. Every mistake here is equally egregious).

You actually informed somebody that you thought you might cause physical harm to your opponent and then kept on playing another four innings!? What was the logic here? If they get injured it's their own fault because we knew we'd hurt them? So, like, you know,  we had to.

"...Then they asked the Newbury coach if he wanted to call off the game and he said NO!"

Mistake number three.

Say we are talking about a boxing match and we apply this ill-formed logic. 

Fighter A is beating the snot out of fighter B. It's round 3 and A knocks down B for the 8th time. But, once again, B gets up. He really can't see because of cuts above both eyes which are reduced to slits from the swelling. His jaw is as broken as his right hand, which now hangs hopelessly by his side, providing A with a never-ending target.

The ref gives B a standing '8' count and then says, "I want to stop it."

"No!", says B, "I'm good."

Using the emailers logic, the ref says, "okay", the fight continues, and we read about B the next morning having been taken by stretcher to the hospital where he has gone into a coma.

"Hey", says the ref, "He said don't stop it. What can I do?"

See where I'm going here Sparky?

Last but not least, the most....what word did I use up there? Oh yeah...egregious mistake of all can be found in the final sentence of the email.

"...Newbury started walking guys when the BSC coach told them not to swing."

Uh....hello? Any grey matter between those ears coach? 

You don't tell your players not to swing. You say, "Go up there, take three swings and if you actually hit the ball you can turn in your uniform."

By the emailer's account, the call to the A-D went out in the 3rd inning. So if every BSC player went up and took three hacks and sat, they'd only have to do that once.

Gee...didn't want to ruin your 7-for-7 day by going 7-for-8? Yeah, that would really suck, wouldn't it? Couldn't possibly do that.

I said it in a roundabout way the first time. Now that someone has been kind enough to furnish me with some facts on the game, I'll be more direct.

Shame on you, BSC players and coaches. It doesn't matter that you embarrassed and shamed Newbury.

You embarrassed and shamed yourself for not having the character or courage to just say 'No'.