Something good must come from Webster’s woes

Town baseball is one of Minnesota’s great treasures. It draws players and fans who truly appreciate what it is – competition for the love of the game and people cheering for their team. It is a blend of passion and community pride reminding us of the local high school team taking on the rival team from the nearby town.

Last month, the Webster ball club saw its hopes for a return to the state tournament come to a disappointing end in the wake of a Minnesota Baseball Association board ruling benching the Sox from the 2023 playoffs for using a player who hadn’t signed a contract to play on the team. The player was the team’s manager, Todd Klehn. Apparently during a contest against Owatonna in May, he took his first ever at-bat in a town team game. The problem for the Sox was not that Klehn whiffed, the problem is he had not signed a contract to play for Webster.

The team playfully posted the results of the contest, and Klehn’s inauspicious trip to the plate, online. Did they think the MBA board wouldn’t see it? Hear about it? The board not only saw it, but used it and other online posts in deciding to ban Webster from postseason play.

Webster claims the contest with Owatonna was a scrimmage, an exhibition. The contest supposedly used a non-sanctioned umpire, some guy Owatonna pulled off the street, the Webster folks said. Supposedly, teams occasionally play exhibition games. That’s fine, but when you have an umpire, it looks like a game. When you draw fans to the field, charge admission and open up the concession stand, it sounds like a game. When you keep score and post the score online and identify one of your players as “the player of the game,” it reads like a game.

The board’s ruling was a devastating blow to the team and its proud fans.

But here’s the rub, the Minnesota Amateur Baseball Association Board of Directors has rules prohibiting players not under contract playing for teams. Among other things, this rule keeps a topflight high school or college graduate being inserted into a lineup to play for a team he ought not play for. Does that equate to a coach who qualifies for AARP taking his first-ever at-bat? Certainly not. Unfortunately, the rule in black and white says it does.

That’s why these situations need to be discussed with the board. Given the board’s history of treating violators of the rule as it is written, the board had little choice but to bench the Sox for the playoffs. Typically, potential violations handled on a case-by-case basis lack consistency players and fans expect. Decisions made on a case-by-case basis have the smell of making it up as you go. A 50-plus manager taking his hacks during garbage time of a game is not the same as a local college pitcher home for the summer setting down 16 opposing players in a row. If there were levels of severity established and placed into rule, there would be less of a sense of a decision being made arbitrarily.

Mark Forsman, president of the Minnesota Baseball Association Board of Directors, said the board annually invites representatives of teams who feel there’s a need to discuss proposed changes in rules or penalties to its annual meeting. He said nobody ever shows up. This year, if nobody from Webster seeks discussion on the penalty associated with the rule the MBA board says the Sox broke, shame on them.

Along with a definition of what constitutes a scrimmage, the board could perhaps consider a tiered system of penalties for a team using a player not under contract, one recognizing the difference between a team using a college player to bolster a lineup in a key game and a team using its manager in a meaningless at-bat during a scrimmage. Webster’s manager tried to take responsibility and offered to resign in the name of his team’s playoff hopes being spared. He offered to accept a suspension, to accept responsibility. After all, it was his mistake.

The ruling hurts the players and the fans who show up and support the team. The Webster team’s players and its fans should be commended for continuing to show up and play hard and approaching each remaining game with their heads held high after their appeal of the board’s decision they would not be allowed to compete for a spot in the playoffs.