In the semi-finals of the Olympic Baseball tournament on Tuesday, the
Canadian team had a 3-2 lead over Cuba going into the 7th inning.
Canadian pitcher Shawn Hill was pitching well -- he'd given up 2 runs
off 4 hits and had 4 strike-outs -- but Canadian coach Ernie Whitt
didn't send him out for the 7th inning. Why not? Whitt was bound by
a pitch count agreement with the Montreal Expos who have Hill in their
organization with the AA Harrisburg Senators. Relievers Chris Begg
and Chris Mears gave up 6 runs in the 8th inning and although the
Canadian team were able to get two in the 9th and came close to tying
the game on the last out (a few inches higher...) the Cubans won and
went on to defeat Australia in the gold medal game. If Whitt had been
allowed to keep Hill in the game an inning or two longer -- in other
words been allowed to manage the game rather than having to follow
orders set before the Olympics began -- Canada might have made it to
the Gold Medal game against a team they'd beaten 11-0 a few days
before.
--
Brent McKee
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"If we cease to judge this world, we may find ourselves, very quickly,
in one which is infinitely worse."
- Margaret Atwood
"Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more
constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of
openness to novelty. "
- Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
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