By David Rogers. BOONE, N.C. — Piling on to their own misfortune, the Whitnel team entry in the Tar Heel League District 2, 15-and-Under baseball tournament double faulted over the weekend and were dismissed from the double elimination format with hardly a thrown ball.
On Feb. 12, Whitnel forfeited to Wilkes County because they didn’t have enough players. A day later, after advancing to the loser’s bracket to face Watauga, Whitnel was disqualified after one inning of play for using ineligible players.
A group comprised of Tar Heel League president Mack McLeod, District 2 commissioner Stephen Poulos, and the three umpires stopped play and conferred briefly at home plate before moving toward the Whitnel dugout with a Boone Police escort to confront the team and its ineligible players, according to league eligibility standards. Satisfied with their findings, the league principals promptly asked the team to immediately leave the venue, Watauga High School.
With the disqualification, Watauga’s 15U team has renewed life and advances to another potential elimination game on Monday, July 15.
Fortunately, Whitnel left without much in the way of incident other than some inflammatory language and gestures on the part of a couple of players. Upon further questioning by High Country Sports, we learned that there had been previous problems with the Whitnel program and they were likely to be permanently barred from future participation in the Tar Heel League, although we were unable to confirm that likelihood with the THL officials by the time of this report.
POSTSCRIPT: LIFE LESSONS
When all is said and done, baseball is most often a game played by young people so there is a natural frustration when something like this happens. One line of thought is that these are young boys becoming men and it is JUST a game, so let ’em play. Canceling a game because of two ineligible players deprives at least 16 others of a chance to have fun playing and hone their skills against competition.
That said, rules and laws are put in place for a reason and when you sign up to participate in a league or organizational format, you are voluntarily promising to abide by whatever rules or laws go with it.
Organized youth development activities like sports usually have a far reaching impact on young athletes and that goes beyond developing their physical skills. Though sometimes harsh, there are life lessons to be learned. Those lessons better equip the participating young men or young women for adulthood, with all of its responsibilities, up and downs, and challenges.
Ultimately, this incident is all about that and we applaud the THL organizers for their diligence and administration.
