The Game Plan

By Charles Prince



You’ve probably heard of arguments over who is the best player in a certain sport, or which team is the best, but I wonder if you’ve ever heard some argue that not every school’s stats should appear in the paper? Well I have. Let me share with you an e-mail I recently received. The text of the e-mail is in italics.

Attached are the final hitting stats for our team. Since you continue to allow a pitcher in the top 5 that has only pitched 18 innings all year, we will not be submitting pitching stats. Next year we will not be submitting any stats unless you establish a policy prior to the start of the season that sets a minimum ” At Bats ” and ” Innings Pitched ” each week that is the same for every team, regardless of games played. The Birmingham News shows in their stats each week the minimum at bats and innings pitched required to be considered.

Also, I advised our football that you include a seven man football team in the weekly stats. This would be like combining the stats from arena football and the NFL. Both leagues play football, however, there is no way you can compare the two leagues due to it’s not the same game. If you continue to allow a seven man football teams stats to be included with our stats, we will not send you our stats.

That’s the text of the e-mail, with a small change. The name of the football coach is deleted, so as not to embarrass the stat keeper. To me, the disappointing thing about this e-mail, is the attempt to force the paper to exclude certain schools’ players from appearing in the weekly stat leaders.

All schools that provide The North Jefferson News with stats, have a right to see those stats published.

The player in question with only 18 inning pitched at the time of the e-mail was Fultondale’s Landon Robinson. He was having a great season even though the Wildcats had several games rained out and didn’t play as many games as some of our other schools. Robinson’s stats deserved mention in our paper.

The reference to seven-man football is obviously directed at Tabernacle, which plays 8-man football. Tabernacle stats appear in our paper as well as the state’s largest newspaper—The Birmingham News, so please don’t try to blackmail our paper into excluding any school’s stats. Stat keepers are a great help to our paper, however, they don’t get to decide which school’s stats appear in our sports section.