Bob Cook

My oldest son recently finished his first year of 9- and 10-year-old PONY league baseball, and let me tell you, some of the coaches could be real jackasses from time to time. There were guys who dropped f-bombs, guys who tried to game the rules and umpires to their advantage, and, worst of all, guys who smoked in the public parks hosting the fields even though that was expressly forbidden.

But none of these guys would ever consider pulling the stunt Bob Farley and Shaun Farr pulled in the 9- and 10-year-old Mueller Park PONY baseball league in Bountiful, Utah — ordering an intentional walk.

If the story were just about ordering an intentional walk, Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated and others outside of Bountiful wouldn’t have bothered this week to dissect Farley and Farr’s action, which took place in late June. But it so happens the weak hitter they wanted to set up for the last out of the championship game against, naturally, the Red Sox, was a 9-year-old brain cancer survivor.

Reports from the game have the fans booing, the pitcher — one of the league’s best — visibly shaken, and the child himself, Romney Oaks — who has a shunt in his head, and who, unlike major leaguers, requires human growth hormone to keep up his strength — crying almost before he got to the plate.

There was no joy in Mudville — as Oaks’ father Marlo told Keith Olbermann on his MSNBC "Countdown" program, not much joy even among the Yankees — as the not-so-mighty Romney struck out. One spectator, who happens to also be the Democratic nominee for the Utah state house seat representing the Mueller Park area, was so stunned, he took to a state party operative’s blog to thump that the free pass was a symbol of "society’s incivility."

"In the world of politics, we . . . see an increase in ‘meanness’ with an attitude of ‘winning at all costs.’ But incivility has now gone beyond politics, and it constantly surrounds us," wrote Richard Watson, who probably should not count on Farley's and Farr’s votes in November.

Presumably, Farley and Farr were trying to give a lesson on baseball strategy, not jackassery, when they ordered the intentional walk.

Instead, they imparted to these impressionable young children that there are people in the world who value winning over everything else, no matter what the cost to their souls. That adults can and will use children for the adults’ own glory, no matter how it affects the kids.

That there are reasons, beyond a lack of ability, that so many kids quit playing organized sports.

Of course, many adults who fondly remember the days before no-score-kept leagues or, like the Mueller Park league, a four-runs-per-bats limit and the requirement that every kid who suits up is part of the gamelong batting order, would side with Farley and Farr in wondering what the fuss was about. Didn’t these kids also get a valuable lesson that life isn’t fair? That argument assumes a kid diagnosed with cancer at age 4 needs more lessons on how life isn’t fair.

But say Romney Oaks didn’t have a cancer, and was just a kid who was still figuring out how to hit. Is what the coaches did so wrong? Why, yes.

Before I explain why, let me say that Farley and Farr, I’m sure, are not inherently bad people. Like some coaches I’ve seen as a youth sports parent, when it comes playoff time, even the nicest of people can choke on their whistles, thus gagging their ideals of teaching young children, and instinctively go for the win, even though at ages 9 and 10, player development is the point, not winning. I haven’t seen 9- or 10-year-olds who worry as much as any adult about winning and losing, but I do see them worry more than any adult if they feel like they’re struggling personally with their game.

Also, I’ve looked at the Mueller Park PONY league rules, and there’s nothing that bans intentional walks.

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