YES, FRONTIER OR ANY OTHER SCORE SHOULD, PER THE RULES, SCORE AS MUCH AS IT CAN

I'm assuming this is a girl's team?  That's the problem right there.  You start to worry about what's wrong or right and whether the other teams will get their feelings hurt.  This isn't little league or special olympics - when you play sports you have the face the fact that sometimes or maybe all the time you will lose and there's no "honorable mention".  If you want a morale boost, hire a bunch of sycophants to sing your praises.

Why should Frontier feel guilty about winning?  Why should a child feel bad about scoring above his peers on a test?  Why should someone feel bad because out of 200 candidates they scored a job?  Why are we as a society constantly trying to dumb down the best and most talented just so the retards can keep up?  We should encourage and reward competitiveness and not sabotage it - what's the point of sports otherwise, and to fall back upon the age old addage, "if winning isn't important, why keep score?"

I say we leave the issue of fairness and ethics to philosophers and ponderers of the truth and keep it out of sports.  Most of these kids are too stupid to succeed at anything else, so we need to encourage them to participate in something that will be useful.  As to those who lose constantly, well we always need infantry units and cannon fodder in wars.

It is so hard to follow erik~ but,huh? 

Of course the teams should do their best.Asking otherwise will not prepare them for the big leagues.Be that their sport of choice or what we adults call "real life".

I'm assuming this is a girl's team?  --erikbako

You assumed right erik. Was it due to the fact that there are no boys softball teams in high school, or the reference to "girls"?

YES, FRONTIER OR ANY OTHER SCHOOL SHOULD, PER THE RULES, SCORE AS MUCH AS IT CAN

 Having coached youth sports teams and having my own children involved in sports, I have come to a conclusion. When do you ever tell a kid not to try as hard as they can, all the time? These girls tried as hard as they could to make this team. Is it unfair to the rest of the girls at the school who didn't make the cut?

How many of these girls going 6-for-6 and 5-for-5 are also keeping their grades up in order to be considered for a college scholarship to play softball? You stand out to recruiters with your statistics.

This is not the girls' fault. The coaches can only do so much to slow the team up. No more stealing, no scoring on passed balls, etc. But if the girls are earning those hits, you can't take that away from them.

If the district is really that worried about mercy rules, they should institute them for every inning. 10 runs after 5 innings, 15 after 4, 20 after 3, 25 after 2. Unless Frontier scored 30 in the first, I would think that West would have just as much of a chance to go on a tear in their half of the inning.

Yes, it really sucks when you're on the losing end of it, but ask any of my kids. They've been there too. The point of sports is to practice the skill to get better. When you get good enough, these blowouts don't happen to you any more, they start happening to your competition.

The "game of life" is the survival of the fittest. Competitive sports is supposed to teach how to win (gracefully) and how to lose (just as gracefully).  The first team my daughter was on (age 8 at NOR) they won one game out of 12. Each and every year after that they did a little better. Her first year in HS (14 at NOR) they won the championship.  Each team should do their best and that's that. 

What about the professional teams that lose all their games?? Nobody will cut them slack.

Pretty much the only thing the winning team can do is play its bench -- deep. I hope the Frontier coach had that option. Once you're ahead by a convincing margin, give every second- and third-stringer (and maybe the equipment manager) a chance to play.

Also, winning coaches might be able to give their pitchers the green light to "practice" pitches that may otherwise be seen as low percentage, like pitching to the corners. With a score of 20-2, a few extra walks shouldn't be a problem.

Beyond that, you can't ask your players to perform below their ability.

Ward, I skim these things because I typically have better things to do.  But I wasn't sure if the question applied to women's sports in general.  It could have been a gay men's team and "girls stepping up to the plate" would have been appropriate.  Quit twisting my pronouns!

I guess a better answer would be that, since this IS a girl's team, who really gives a -?

I think calling off a slaughter in progress should be the coach's discretion. If he feels his team is being humiliated, he can call the team off the field and forfeit. The post didn't mention anything about the losing team being lampooned or disrespected, even though this particular team can't play ball very well.  

By the way, Zach, I do "drop by" now and again even though I really don't have much of an interest in school sports. Of all the blogs on this site, I think yours maintains the highest standard of reporting. You write what you know about and stay focused on the topic. I can't say that about other columnists who have got to give the readership their uneducated views on the economy, abortion, religion, and so on. Please keep doing what you're doing; you're a credit to your profession.

Thanks for all the replies and for the kind words, catpaw. It seems like most folks think Frontier was in line the other day, and I don't disagree, though I should point out that I wasn't at the game and don't really know what the atmosphere was like as far as "running up the score" or just playing hard and seeing how the game ended up. I sincerely hope that the Titans took the opportunity to clear their bench, both for the sake of getting kids playing time and to lighten up on West, and I hope they weren't taking extra bases with a 25-run lead. I do know there were some people upset by the score, but that's why there's a question here in the first place.

 there were some people upset by the score

Then they need to put their kids in special olympics where they all get a ribbon regardless of how much they suck.  Maybe the parents can get a ribbon too for being such great role models.

I thought I could find it on here, but when will the All-Area for basketball and soccer be out?  Thanks....

Soccer will be out April 3, wrestling April 4 and basketball April 5, this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

thanks!