- Jun 12, 2015
- 3,848
- 83
Lots of funny stuff stuff here. I find the whole guest playing stuff shady for the most part. It is absolutely different when you are short players and picking up players to be able to play with their coach's permission. Totally different when you have plenty of players to play and do it because....you are trying out a player to see if you want them on your team. Let's be real...that is what it is.
Who's responsibility is it to make sure the regual Head Coach is on board with his players guest playing on a team? I would think it a professional courtesy in the very absolute least that if you want to borrow a player...you contact Head Coach of that team and ask if it is ok. If the player comes to you...same deal...you contact the other coach. Just because "everyone" does it doesn't make it right.
The better question is why is this allowed? Doesn't happen in Baseball at club level does it. Happens in Soccer, but there is a whole lot of hoops to jump through...at it is not possible to do without your coach's permission.
Why is softballl this way?
I actually have no problem with coaches picking up players to see if they're a good fit, like a tryout. Or, if a player is needed for a weekend. We were scheduled to play a 7GG earlier in the spring. We only have 2 pitchers. First year 12U, playing pretty tough competition. We're not going deep right now in our 3 and 4GG tourneys, our 2 can handle it assuming nobody gets injured (we just send positive vibes into the universe about this, not much else we can do - pitchers don't grow on trees). For the 7GG we planned to pick up a pitcher because a minimum of 7 games is too much for 2 pitchers over a day and a half. It ended up getting rained down to a 4GG so we didn't end up with a pick up. We once picked up because we only had 7 girls who could make a friendly. We picked up 2 to get us to 9. Things like that don't bother me at all, and make sense. Sometimes if you can't pick up, you can't play, and that stinks for the kids who want to be on the field.
What I don't like is, "Hey, our older A level sister team is off this weekend. Let's grab their ace pitcher and go beat up everybody." If you win against teams you almost never beat, with ace pick ups at pitcher, catcher, or SS, your team didn't really win. Your pick-ups won. Sitting your own girls for a win is yucky. Pick up if you need players but otherwise give your girls the reps. The only exception I could see would be something like PGF Nationals. I figure if a team is flying from GA across the country to try to represent in a big national tournament like that and they want an insurance pitcher or whatever, I can't really blame them. That is one expensive trip to only get your minimum number of games. For regular local tourneys though, no. Let your team win or lose on their own merit. JMO.