To the Editor:
This letter is in response to Dina
Plater’s letter regarding the St. Mary’s
County Women’s Softball League
Championship Series and the information
she reported to your paper as being
fact. First, I would like to
congratulate Ms. Plater on recognizing
the black front runners in this county
in the sport of softball, the ones who
paved the way for many of us who play
today. That’s right, I said us. As one
of two black women on Chesapeake’s
Women’s Softball team, I would like to
respond to Ms. Plater’s, and others’
accusations that the decisions made on
Sunday, October 7th, the day
of the game in question, were racially
motivated and determined the outcome of
the game.
First of all, I know that many people
would like to believe that every
decision that is made that is seemingly
“against” or “for” one race or group of
people or another is “racist.” But this
is not always the case. As far as the
outcome of the championship game that
day, race had absolutely nothing to do
with it. Let me just point out for
those of you who don’t know, I played
tournaments with Just Us this entire
season, traveling to North Carolina
twice, Myrtle Beach, and Glen Burnie to
play with their team and I love all of
those girls and I know that they are
excellent ball players. They came
together as a team and had a wonderful
season and should be applauded for their
1st place regular season
finish. I’m sure everyone would agree
with that.
Here is where we disagree. Chesapeake
Women’s Softball team won the
championship series outright and should
be congratulated for doing so. As the 3rd
place team in the regular season, no one
but us really believed that Chesapeake
would put up enough runs to beat Just
Us, not once, not twice, but 3 times.
But guess what, we did it. Just Us won
the first game of the series decisively;
the final score was 20-10. And to be
honest, I believe there were those who
believed that the series was as good as
over at the end of that game. But low
and behold, Chesapeake won the 2nd
game of the series, DECISIVELY, 29-14.
No one was asking questions at that
point. The series was tied 1-1 and both
teams knew what they had to do. Game 3
was a much closer game, and Chesapeake
came out on top, 5-4. Again, no
questions were asked. Next came Game 4
and here is where the confusion began.
Chesapeake decided to protest one of the
bats being swung by Just Us and the
umpire removed the protested bat from
the game. Pretty much the whole Just Us
line-up was swinging the bat so needless
to say, they weren’t too happy about the
removal. But here is where it gets
dicey. The mistaken call was not made
in Game 5, but actually Game 4, the
night we protested the Just Us bat.
There were no National or State USSSA
rules or SMCWSL By-Laws on the books in
2007 that state that a protested bat
must be removed from the game. The
National USSSA rules state that when a
bat is protested it is the umpire’s
discretion and he/she MAY either remove
the bat from the game or ask the player
not to use the bat but it does not say
that they MUST remove the bat from the
game. Based on this rule the Just Us
bat never should have been removed from
the game. In other words, Just Us
should have been allowed to continue
swinging their bat in Game 4. Needless
to say, Just Us won Game 4 anyway,
17-10, without the bat. Just Us was
given the bat back in time to swing it
in Game 5, the deciding game of the
championship. I was told before the
game by the Just Us coach that they had
the bat back and he even pointed it out
to me. The rest of our discussion will
remain between him and I, but I was
called over by the coach and he made a
point to show me which bat had been
protested.
In Game 5, Dana “Butter” Stauffer hit a
homerun that sent in a few runs and Just
Us immediately decided to challenge her
bat. Butter has been swinging this bat
the entire season and had not hit one
out until that game. She and the rest
of Chesapeake were still fired up from
Game 4 and frustrated from our poor
performance in that game, not because of
the bat challenge from that game. We
came out determined to do our absolute
best and we wanted to win just as badly
as Just Us did. We had something to
prove to ourselves. Before the game
started, the coaches of both teams were
told that any protested bats would
remain in the game and be taped and
would remain at the backstop behind the
umpire for the duration of the game.
Once the game was over it would be sent
away for testing. Both coaches were
aware of this rule, and it may be news
to some, but that was actually the
correct procedure based on the existing
USSSA rules. It was not enforced
properly in Game 4 but it was in Game
5. With this rule—and it’s not a NEW
rule—being enforced, Butter asked the
umpire for permission to swing the bat
after it was protested and the umpire
told her that she could, and once again,
she hit it out. It’s also important to
mention that not only did the umpire on
the field allow Butter to swing the bat
he also made a call to the Mid-Atlantic
Region USSSA Director who also confirmed
that the bat could be used again after
it was protested. And for those of you
who think that that one swing determined
the outcome of the game: Before Butter
hit that second homerun with her
protested bat; the score of the game was
15-5, in Chesapeake’s favor, in the 4th
inning. Only 2 runs came in off of
Butter’s second homerun and Chesapeake
scored 3 more runs after that to
complete its scoring at 20. Just Us
scored a total of 7 runs the entire
game. A game in which they swung the
bat we protested the entire game—but
that’s all the offense they came up
with. No one can blame Chesapeake,
race, or the umpire for that. It just
wasn’t their day, just like Games 1 and
4 were not the best performances for
Chesapeake. Also, to lay any suspicions
to rest, Butter is the only player on
Chesapeake who swings her bat. Joyce
Aud has an identical orange bat, but she
swings a 26 ounce and Butter swings a 27
ounce. And also, before you start
placing blame on coaches and accusing
innocent people of wrong doing, Ms.
Plater, I respectfully ask that you
check into your facts. Mike is one of
our coaches and he plays for Two Guys.
They played against R&T in the men’s
slowpitch championship series. I also
follow R&T, and I know that they won the
series and that Mike hit 4 homeruns in
the final game. But Mike was not
swinging Dana Stauffer’s bat. Actually,
on the day that the final game between
R&T Trucking and Two Guys was played,
Dana’s bat was still in the possession
of Bob Holland, the USSSA representative
for this county. Because unlike the bat
that was protested from Just Us, Dana’s
bat was actually being sent away for
testing. And, by the way, we have
received Butter’s bat back and it was
determined to be legal.
I
can agree with one other point that you
made Ms. Plater. Just Us should indeed
hold their heads up high because they
are one heck of a ball team who had one
heck of a season. The championship
series was hard fought. Both teams had
great performances and not so great
performances. The truth is that Just Us
did not expect to lose and not many
people expected them to lose. But they
did not lose because of the umpires,
because the day the umpires made the
mistake, they actually won that game.
They lost because Chesapeake played fair
and hard and we came out on top in Games
2, 3, and 5. And if you take a look at
the books from either team, you will see
that the errors and mistakes did not
begin for Just Us after Butter hit that
second homerun. Just Us did not play
their best ball from the beginning of
the game. No one is saying they are not
an excellent team because of that. But,
the Chesapeake Women are the Champions
because they showed up and played ball
that day. So don’t take away
Chesapeake’s joy at winning the
championship simply because your team
lost. That’s not called being a fan,
it’s called poor sportsmanship.
Nichole Estep
Mechanicsville
