1) What happened to sportsmanship? Personally, I've never believed professional teams should hold back from scoring; a bunch of grown men making millions of dollars to play a game should be able to stomach a beating once in a while without crying. But a high school game is permitted to get to this level? Also, the team had to ask for the game to be stopped, so who knows how long the umpire would have let it go on. I can't believe this was allowed to continue after 26 runs in the first inning.
2) Now, excuse my ignorance, because I know very little of other cultures. However, I've also thought that in terms of baseball, Japanese players and participants often competed with much more grace and respect than their American counterparts. Why wasn't this respect shown to the losing team? I could see this maybe happening in some rabid baseball town in the United States, but in Japan, where I have always been told sportsmanship is taken to the highest level? Quite interesting.
3) What about the line that the game was ended to protect the pitcher's arm - after 250 pitches! The coach was apparently worried he might get to 500 and hurt himself. I've also been a big believer that counting pitches in the major leagues has gotten to a ridiculous point, with it being one of the main considerations while managing a game. Still, 250 throws for a high schooler is plain irresponsible. The poor kid could have really damaged his arm, and it wasn't fair to keep him throwing that long while being humiliated. 500's a problem, but 250 is OK? My arm would have fallen off.
I'd love to get your opinions on this - perhaps somewhat trivial, but I just thought there were a lot of interesting points to spark some discussion. Looking forward to your comments.
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