Choosing Up Sides in ‘Safety’ Ball Flap
Re hardball vs. “safety” ball issue:
As sponsors of our son’s team, involved parents and working professionals in Laguna Niguel, we feel the behavior demonstrated by the parents entrusted to make decisions regarding our children’s welfare and safety was nothing less than shocking and appalling. It is extremely disconcerting to know that each year we nominate and elect individuals to the Little League Board that are supposed to be representative of the parents of our community, yet they become so autocratic and unsympathetic to the concerns and appeals of the parents. As advocates for the safety ball, it is unfortunate that we had to go to such lengths to have our opinions heard.
This baseball season has not been fun for the parents or the kids. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have a season devoid of name-calling, threats of bodily harm, secret board meetings held that exclude people with opposing views, formations of groups or people that align themselves because of personal vendettas that distort the real issues at hand? Wouldn’t it be heartening to have the new board comprised of individuals that would have respect for one another as well as their opinions, welcome the parental concerns, organize study groups representing both side of these concerns that report back to the board in an effort to make an educated decision?
NANCY FEINGOLD
Laguna Niguel
* As an ex-Little League player, a parent of an 8-year-old player, and a third-year coach of boys now 7, 8 and 9 years of age, I am as qualified to comment on the issue of RIF (“safety”) baseballs as the next person. Points I would like to make on this issue and in response to the editorial “Better Protection for Little Leaguers,” (May 15):
1) The RIF balls do not play the same as hardballs. They are lighter and faster off the bat, and travel farther than a similarly hit hardball. They are very much like a brand-new baseball-sized softball. It does make the game different. It is not baseball. It is not a bad thing, but it is not the same thing.
2) You want to protect batters? Start with face shields on the helmets. Even a RIF ball to the eye socket by a strong-armed pitcher will do damage.
3) You want to protect fielders? Eliminate aluminum bats. Wooden bats along with a harder, heavier, more resistant (therefore slower) hardball actually result in fewer line drives blistering through an infield. This is a known safety issue that precludes aluminum bat use in the Major Leagues.
4) You want to protect everybody? Require the league to monitor play in the lower divisions and move the obviously bigger, faster, stronger kids up to the next division to keep strength and reaction times equal. Also: outlaw curveballs to protect young arms; require sliding into home at plays to the plate; pad those iron storm-fence poles used to hold up the outfield fences; check the field for potholes before every game; require 10 minutes of stretching and warm-up exercises before every game or practice, and restrict kids older than 12 from playing any kind of baseball on fields that use basepaths of less than the full 90 feet.
ERIC HAINLINE
Orange