I've looked at some discussions on the Houston Chronicle.
It appears there were plenty of villains here, most of them adults.
One person claimed that, in the past, the Texas softball authorities used umpire evaluations to determine who umped the championship games, but recently stopped that. This person claimed that is why the umpires were so bad in this game. If that is true, there are several villains outside of both teams.
The umps, and the Texas softball authorities who chose them to work this game. The umps clearly lost control of the game. One parent claimed on the Chronicle forum that (A) the catcher did nothing wrong and (B) the other side was playing dirty too, so they deserved it.
The parents fighting in the stands, and probably egging on their DDs to retaliate, etc. C'mon, this is NOT Yankee Stadium*. Softball is supposed to be civilized.
The coaches. The onus is on the coaches to keep their players under control. This was not happening.
Other random adults: the catcher's TB coach posted on the Chronicle that the catcher was a great sportsman, and did nothing wrong on this play. Lovely. Sounds like a really classy organization. I really hope the TB coach was trying to protect her player in public, and rips her a new one in private.
Yes, the catcher made 2 really thuggish plays, the second even worse than the first. She bears responsibility for her actions. But, it seems like there was more than a little bit of encouragement for her to play that way.
* Note: I chose Yankee Stadium because that is where I have seen the most boorish fan behavior. And yes, I have been to Shea Stadium and Veterans' Stadium. The most polite fans I've seen were in Lambeau Field, where the crew evicted fans for being mean to Bears fans. Bear baiting is NOT permitted in Lambeau Field.
I have not seen that, but if the her TB coach actually went on record with that statement, he should be banned from softball. I can understand taking up for your players to a certain extent, but to not hold her responsible for her actions is in fact condoning them.