#FreeFriday - Stubby Clapp loses his mind

Take a look at the recent "performance" Tri-City Valley Cats manager Stubby Clapp (email subscribers click here).



This video is also available on SportsmanshipTV.

Why do we put up with this foolishness in baseball? In football, it's 15 yards and an automatic first down. In basketball, it's a technical free throw and possession. In baseball, it's Ringling Bros. No other sport even pretends to tolerate this kind of behavior towards its officials. You can curse, spit on, bump, push and kick dirt on umpires without any in-game consequences. Sure, the league can and will suspend. The other ones do that too. When players and managers perform like Clapp did, it gets replayed hundreds if not thousands of times on highlight shows - repeated enough for our kids to see. How would you react if your kid kicked dirt on the umpire? What if he pulled second base out of the ground and ran off with it?

I have a pretty simple solution to this type of behavior. Whenever a manager leaves the dugout to do anything but change pitchers, the opposing team's next player at-bat automatically advances to third base. Same thing goes for players who argue on the field and show out as well. Obviously, this idea would need a little tweaking for end-of-game situations, but you get the picture. It's just hard to tell your kid to play baseball the right way when the manager is throwing bats on the field. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Today is Free Friday. The 25th new person to "like" our SportsmanshipTV Facebook page today will receive three tickets to see the St. Louis Rams battle the Indianapolis Colts next Saturday, August 13 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. Until next time...

Be a Good Sport!

-Sol