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Unless you’re Chuck Norrris

I will preface all I’m about to say by stating I have been involved in yute sports from every angle, player, coach, official, and administrator, I always felt like I had a pretty good handle on what we, at least I was trying to accomplish with yute sports. And call me a romantic, but I truly believe athletics are an extension of the classroom. With all that being said everyone is aware of the current state of officiating at all levels. Shortages, bad officials, inexperienced officials working to high of levels, rinse, repeat. Over the weekend while supervising a club softball tournament I read numerous posts on FB complaining about umps… from C level to a HS Varsity HC complaining umpires cost his team a sectional championship in a 7-6 that featured his opponent hitting a grand slam. Most of the posts, complete with pics and vids did show a generous strike zone. But the recurring theme I heard was yes it was like that the every game of the sectional. Everything I saw as an uninterested third party looked consistent to me. WTF else can you ask for? I will assure you when I’m on fire behind the dish I’ll still miss a couple. Which leads me to the point of this paperback. I’m 61 years old and I realize I’m from another time, but in my thinking, we need to adjust to Blue’s zone. That would seem a LOT more logical than bitching about balls and strikes on FB wouldn’t it? Today I got involved in this gem on FB. 11 YO gets punched out on a pitch in the other batters box, it’s a bad call, but it IS the call. My point is my thought process in ALL of this I’m trying to teach my kids A) shit just went wrong, how are you going to react and B) to control what they can control. And don’t waste energy on stuff you can’t. Instead of whining on FB and looking like a TOTAL BEOTCH, what if we taught our kids to make adjustments. If Blue’s got a wide zone, let’s throw our hands at it, foul it off and maybe the next pitch will be something we can do something with. On the other side of it, when you’re sitting over there on that bucket, don’t you keep calling farther and farther out until you figure out Blue’s limit is? What are we trying to accomplish with youth sports today? As an official and administrator, what are we doing? Are we here for the NIL money, college scholarships, have fun, child development, social status ( yes I’m looking at you in particular Westfield), I’m down with whatever just let me know what we’re trying to accomplish

You can't hit a ball you didn't swing at.

Pretty much how life is though. Do people drive 40 in a 35 mph zone? Do people stick to the 55 mph speed limits? Do police pull people over going 38 in a 35 zone? Plenty of other examples than just speed limits. There is give and take everywhere. To expect a level of consistency is reasonable though.

No Bears’ fan cares what you think … and we hope you fall off your soapbox and hit your head — even though it’s not a vital organ! 🤣😂😅

@ptr Not sure if you saw but it looks like Bloomington South and Greenfield-Central will play in week 5 at Greenfield. South’s schedule is now filled.

I love winning as much as the next person, but what happened to finding a way to win through actions rather than words and complaints. This is the reason we have little girls and boys going out into the real world instead of young men and women. We have parents, coaches, and leaders holding the hands of student athletes to make sure everything goes perfect for them. One thing I never understood as a child, but now can't appreciate enough from my parents was their ability to allow my siblings and I to fail on our own, and sit back and say you got knocked on your ass what are YOU going to do to figure it out because once you get out in the real world there's no one to sit there and hold your hand through this whole thing we call life. We're crippling our youngsters by not allowing them to fail similar to what you said with the strike zone. It's bigger figure it out.