The Little League Softball World Series found itself embroiled in controversy this week, after one team decided to blatantly throw a game in order to eliminate one of their toughest opponents.
A team from Snohomish, Washington was on the wrong end of an 8-0 no-hitter, which will tend to happen when batters are ordered by coaches to swing at pitches in the dirt and consistently bunt with two strikes. The reason for this was to make sure that a Central Iowa team which Washington barely beat 4-3 would be eliminated via a tiebreaker in the standings.
Now, this is obviously the worst display of sportsmanship possible, and probably not the way you want to see America's youth being raised. But the coaches were simply exploiting a flaw in the system to gain a competitive advantage, and since that's essentially how the world works, maybe they were teaching these kids an important life lesson, albeit in the crudest way possible.
Following a protest, the tournament committee ruled that the Washington team that tanked must face the Central Iowa team they had eliminated in a playoff game on Tuesday, so shenanigans won't ultimately determine the winner of this tournament. But whatever the outcome, it will be tainted nonetheless.
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[via Deadspin]
