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Fair Ball?



A few weeks ago, I attended my niece’s baseball game. It was a cold, overcast evening with intermittent rain and wind leaving the ground messy and muddy, but don’t worry, the baseball was far worse than the weather conditions. Even calling this baseball was a bit of a stretch, as it was “coach pitch.” Well, it wasn’t even that, as the coaches had a mechanical pitching machine to assist them, but I digress.

They weren’t keeping score, which I was prepared for, but it was still disappointing. Everyone got to bat every inning, which was annoying, but I guess that’s what they must do to keep everything “fair.” And if there’s one life lesson to learn in sports, it’s that life is fair and everyone gets an equal chance at everything (I can’t even write this with a straight face). Here’s what really got me though: there are no outs! A kid can swing and swing, missing pitch after pitch until the coach is worn out loading the little rubberized ball (they aren’t even real baseballs, we have to make it “safe”) into the machine, and then they bring out the tee. Now these aren’t toddlers out there, mind you. These kids were seven, eight and nine years old, way too old for this level of patronizing.

So, what does “no outs” look like? Once a player does finally hit a ball into play (this seemed to take hours at times) – even if the player grounds out or hits a pop fly that is caught – they get to go to first base. No exceptions. Furthermore, a runner already on base also gets to advance a base, no matter what. But only one base. So it doesn’t matter if a kid has seventeen strikes, finally gets to use the tee, then hits a dribbler to the pitcher and gets tagged trying to find first base (this happened, by the way – I guess the kids need maps these days or maybe a special base-running app on their phone) or smashes a line drive over all the kids’ heads deep into the outfield (this never happened though, as performance-enhancing drugs apparently haven’t yet made it into little league games), every at-bat results in a single.

There are literally zero consequences for any and every play. The result is the same every time. Everyone scores no matter how bad they mess up. No one loses, so consequently, there are no winners. You can’t fail, thus you cannot succeed. And whether you are the lazy kid in right field taking a nap or the rare player giving it 100% of your effort, your impact to the outcome of the game is the same. Nothing matters. But at least it’s “fair.”

Unfortunately, the idea of a life without consequences is sold far beyond the childhood years and many adults have bitten into the toxic fruit of this lie. When we strive for fairness above virtue and try to remove consequences from actions, everyone loses. This kind of “fair” ball is actually quite foul.

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