Ho Hum

There is a reason that the Courier is a real newspaper, and the Insider is a bottom-feeding blog. The Courier actually checks out things before going to press; we don't.

This came over the transom this evening:

Hi there,

Generally love the site and am an avid follower......however, you are getting some bad information on the baseball issue. The meeting this evening was the normal Booster Club meeting and dealt with the routine issues. It was a small meeting and did not deal with issues related to the coach in any regard.

I am sure that some parents are probably not happy with the progress, or lack thereof, of the overall program....however, no uprising exists and no one is demanding Lee's head on the chopping block.

Anyway, thought you might want the straight scoop.

Can we at least keep using the "Step forward and man up" phrase? We really like that one.

A Disturbance in the Force

Inside Baseball?
We are sensing ripples in the force and they appear to be emanating from a meeting scheduled tonight of the Claremont High School Baseball Booster Club. Booster Club President Nicole Troli may have her hands full dealing with team parents unhappy with coach Mike Lee. Lee came to Claremont last Fall amid some controversy, detailed here, here, and here.

There are rumblings of mental, emotional, and verbal abuse of the team's players. We don't know whether this has to do with the Pack's so-so season (the team is 4-7 in league play and under .500 overall), some kind of uber-drill-sergeant attitude on the part of Coach Lee, or whether it's over-protective Claremont parents. In our experience, winning makes tolerable a lot of things that in losing are blameworthy.

We do know that if we had failed to execute that easy double play, and had all 600 pounds of Coach Lee charging us from the dugout, we might expect more in the way of mental, emotional, and verbal abuse than an invitation to discuss the fundamentals of baseball over tea on Wednesday. (Don't believe the "600 pounds" part? See the Courier photo here.)

Though we know passions are running high on this matter, we have not heard a reprise of any of the more lurid charges (by Claremont standards) that were circulated last Fall from Mike Lee's previous employment, and certainly nothing going beyond those charges.

We will be watching and listening to see what comes of tonight's Booster Club meeting, now scheduled an hour early (to accommodate lengthy discussion?) for 6 p.m. Will there be a real foodfight? Or will it be a sleepy civil Claremont meeting with behavioral norms and everything?