Cheez, Louise, folks, it's Little League - remember the Little League pledge "I will strive to win, but, win or lose, I will always do my best". Not only do you have to work within the pitching restrictions, I have not seen anybody post any sympathy for the kids who were asked to perform in relief, and were not able to shut the door. It's all animus.
Some folks are awful quick to jump on the manager - the volunteer, giving-up-most-of-his-summer-likely-all-his-vacation manager. This isn't the pros, folks, it's not even JV high school, and this is not Sparky Anderson, or even Bobby Valentine we're talking about. Comments like "the manager played to lose" and "took the United States Championship away" are asinine, insensitive, and the reason why folks like me have had worse experience managing Little League than coaching high school JV, Varsity, and ASA summer ball.
Not to mention the Monday-morning quarterbacking aspect of passing judgment on a team when you know nothing about the individual players, their abilities, health, relative maturity, capacity to deal with pressure, etc.. The coaching staff has spent months with these kids, perhaps over a number of years, but we have folks here on the Boneyard who know how to manage them better. What arrogance.
Not every decision works out, folks. Not for Geno, not for Presidents, not for our parents, and not for you and me. But, to exorcise volunteers who give enormously of their time to work with 12-year olds, because of a decision that doesn't work out in a Little League game, well..it's trite, but, get a life!
