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Sports See other Sports Articles Title: You make the call - Is it good baseball strategy or a weak attempt to win? You make the call Tuesday August 8, 2006 8:29AM; This actually happened. Your job is to decide whether it should have. In a nine- and 10-year-old PONY league championship game in Bountiful, Utah, the Yankees lead the Red Sox by one run. The Sox are up in the bottom of the last inning, two outs, a runner on third. At the plate is the Sox' best hitter, a kid named Jordan. On deck is the Sox' worst hitter, a kid named Romney. He's a scrawny cancer survivor who has to take human growth hormone and has a shunt in his brain. So, you're the coach: Do you intentionally walk the star hitter so you can face the kid who can barely swing? Wait! Before you answer.... This is a league where everybody gets to bat, there's a four-runs-per-inning max, and no stealing until the ball crosses the plate. On the other hand, the stands are packed and it is the title game. So ... do you pitch to the star or do you lay it all on the kid who's been through hell already? Yanks coach Bob Farley decided to walk the star. Parents booed. The umpire, Mike Wright, thought to himself, Low-ball move. In the stands, Romney's eight-year-old sister cried. "They're picking on Romney!" she said. Romney struck out. The Yanks celebrated. The Sox moaned. The two coaching staffs nearly brawled. And Romney? He sobbed himself to sleep that night. "It made me sick," says Romney's dad, Marlo Oaks. "It's going after the weakest chick in the flock." Farley and his assistant coach, Shaun Farr, who recommended the walk, say they didn't know Romney was a cancer survivor. "And even if I had," insists Farr, "I'd have done the same thing. It's just good baseball strategy." Romney's mom, Elaine, thinks Farr knew. "Romney's cancer was in the paper when he met with President Bush," she says. That was thanks to the Make-A-Wish people. "And [Farr] coached Romney in basketball. I tell all his coaches about his condition."
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