Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

I’m sure I’ll be accused of keeping a so-called controversy alive or of baiting people. But really, this is about an impressive kid who exchanged a couple e-mails with me.

Any reader of this blog has probably seen the furor over Independent and its baseball and softball teams. Seems there were some issues with the fans at both sites and it wasn’t the best situation.

I recently got an e-mail from Marshall Frey, the recently graduated catcher for the school’s baseball team. He wrote a very intelligent, well-thought out e-mail, and I’m going to share a few parts with you.

He acknowledged that Independent fans get deeply involved in games, that they attend games no matter where they play, but at times, he pointed out, they may not have realized they’ve gone too far. When he sees them get a “little rowdy” he chalks that up to how much they care.

He followed that by saying, “In now way, shape or form do I condone yelling rude comments or obscenities to the umpires or the opposing teams. I wasn’t raised that way. I recently caught a game for Gerald, the umpire who was behind the plate in our state championship game and the subject of the officiating in that game came up. While the calls did not go in our favor, I told him that that was how the game of baseball worked, and (the) game wasn’t decided on the umpires. As a team, we did not execute the game of baseball to the best of our abilities. I can only speak for myself, but I think our team would agree.”

(my opinion — how impressed are you by a teenager saying this? I was blown away. But this next paragraph is when I think he made a point that so often gets lost by all of us.)

“That being said, too much attention has been given to the acts of our fans. The real tragedy is the fact that the real discussion should be on the kids who fought at worked to get to where they were. Entering the state title game, we were a combined 50-0. That’s pretty impressive. It took (a lot) of hard work and dedication to get to that point. So as a journalist, I would ask that you cover the real story here, which is the work that the kids and their coaches put into getting to where they are.”

(Frey is going to Manhattan Christian College to play baseball and will do their dual degree program there.) He also had a conversation with our correspondent, Levi Wolters, who covered 3A baseball and softball and wrote the blog item, too. Levi e-mailed me to tell me that Frey had called him to tell him he and his teammates were upset about the blog post. During the course of the conversation, they talked it through.

Here’s what Levi said about Frey: “I was completely taken aback  by this18-year-old young man taking the time to call me and voice his opinion — not his dad or anyone else doing it for him — to someone older, someone he didn’t know and had never talked to before. He never raised his voice. He never interrupted. He listened to my side. He made his points much more clearly and eloquently than I did. It was as good — probably better — than any adult could have done. I was amazed.

Frey is truly impressive. I certainly understand his point, one others have made, that the situation is negative. I know that most of us want to avoid negativity, yet it is often what raises the most conversation.

I take you back, once again!, to my posts on what annoys you most and what makes you happy. The negative post was viable and lasted, the other died a quick death with no feedback.

But I also would like to say that if negatives are ignored, won’t they just continue? Isn’t conversation good? I do believe that parents have gotten out of control. You see it in the news too often about a parent hitting a Little League umpire or something ridiculous like that. This obviously wasn’t at that level, but it was still ugly.

Too often we try to ignore the ugly, sweep it under the rug and forget about it. And then it crops back up again. To me, that’s our own fault. I’m a firm believer in talking about it and getting it out in the open and then fixing it — it’s certainly the tougher route in the short term. I believe in the long term that things do get better if this is the path taken.

What too many forget in sports is who this is about. It’s not about me, even though this is my job. It’s not about the parents, even though it’s their children participating. It’s about the kids and their life experiences.

So be mad at me for bringing this topic up again. I can take it. But while you’re mad at me, please notice the important parts of this post — a young man is able to see more clearly than a bunch of adults what is important; the kids playing should be the focus, so don’t be the one taking the focus off them by your actions.

And be impressed by Marshall Frey, his parents and his educators and coaches at Independent.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 11:12 a.m. and is filed under Baseball, Softball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.