'Chatter' ban is a disgrace to baseball; 'let the kids play, blue!'

I know little league baseball has to have rules, but one league has gone just too far. The Cincinnati Little League has banned "chatter" in ball games. This is a disgrace to the game of little league baseball. My little league experience would not have been the same if I did not hear the taunts from other players. Winners win and losers lose, that is what little league baseball is about.

Getting taunted in little league games helps to build character. Competitive sports will have winners and losers. Placing a ban on chatter during little league games will only put children at a disadvantage for the rest of their baseball career. How will a player know that they suck if other players are not allowed to tell them?

The league president said in an interview, "If you're saying, 'Swing, batter,' and this poor little kid is swinging at everything, he feels bad and maybe he turns to the catcher and gets mad. Honest to gosh, I didn't have any trouble doing this."

Honest to gosh, I think this is crap. It is not the catcher's fault if a batter swings and misses. I remember hearing another phrase as a kid, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." What ever happened to that?

Kids are cruel. They are now, they were when I was a kid, they were 50 years ago and they will be before and after baseball games in Cincinnati. If kids want to taunt and tease each other they will. I wish it was not like that, but it is a pattern that I have seen repeated over and over.

Baseball is the first sport that I ever played. I will be honest, my first year was a little rocky, but like I said it was my first year. I think I was in the top 10 in my league for strikeouts and I am pretty sure I led my team. The other teams would taunt and tease me when I went up to bat, but I did not care because I was playing for the love of the game, not them. And that is the best reason a player should play.

I do not think that this new rule set in Cincinnati will do much good. I would not be surprised if more fights broke out during the game. Tempers will flair during the game but little league is supposed to be there to help build self-control. What a better way of doing it than by putting a ban on speech.

Now the kids in Cincinnati do not only have to play the game, but they have to be careful not to say the wrong thing. No one wants to get thrown out of a game for wanting a pitcher, not a belly itcher.