Florida High School Baseball Team Cuts Legless Player
A Florida high school baseball team's decision to cut a double-amputee
player from the squad had critics crying foul.
Pitcher Anthony Burruto -- who has prosthetic legs, can throw an 80-mph
fastball and was featured on the cover of ESPN the Magazine -- was cut
after he tried out for Dr. Phillips High School varsity team.
Coach Mike Bradley's main concern about Burroto was him trying to field
bunts off the pitcher's mound, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
"He's not looking at him as an athlete. He was looking at him like he's a
disabled person," Anthony's mom, Diane Burroto, told the paper.
Dennis Rasmussen, who pitched in the majors for 12 seasons, said simply,
"This decision was wrong."
"You took away the hopes and dreams that Anthony's been hanging onto,"
Rasmussen, a friend of Burruto's family, told the Orlando Sentinel. "He
crushed a young man with no apparent reason."
But Principal Gene Trochinski stands by the coach's decision.
"I think the coaches made a determination of who could contribute to the
team this year and not that Anthony couldn't, but other kids could at a
higher level," he told MyFoxOrlando.com.
Anthony had his legs amputated as a baby because he was born without a
shinbone in his left leg and without a fibula in his right one.
Despite the setback, he doesn't make any excuses for being cut.
"I want to earn my position on the team. I want him to say I'm good enough
to play," he told the paper.
Sort of reminds me of this guy's problem. Makes me wonder how many high school kids have bunting skills good enough to pose that much trouble. Couldn't he play like 1st base instead ?
"It''s not dark yet--but it's getting there". -- Bob Dylan
Carbon Dating, the number one dating app for senior citizens.
"Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teaches my hands to the war, and my fingers to fight."
Carson wrote:Any coach who would actually call for bunts against that guy would be the only other contestant in the Fuckhead of The Year contest.
Why is that?
I guess I whiffed on my satire swing.
If the guy has any kind of arm, keep him as a reliever in blowouts, but why flat-out cut him? Seems extreme.
Any coach that would rely on continually bunting against this guy would be selling his batters short while proving he has no business coaching.
I'm all for putting the best team on the field but this is high school ball and kids should at least be able to dream a few more years before they have to face realities like war and taxation.
JPGettysburg wrote: ↑Fri Jul 19, 2024 8:57 pm
In prison, full moon nights have a kind of brutal sodomy that can't fully be described with mere words.
Carson wrote:I'm all for putting the best team on the field but this is high school ball and kids should at least be able to dream a few more years before they have to face realities like war and taxation.
Fuck that. I suppose I should have made the baseball team too? Never mind that I couldn't field my position. I should have made the team and gotten PT just because I tried. Right?
BTW: Track was more fun anyway. I threw shot and disc. We lifted and we threw. No 30 minute wind sprint torture sessions running up and down hills like the baseball team had to deal with. I should send a thank you note to the coach who cut me.
"Once upon a time, dinosaurs didn't have families. They lived in the woods and ate their children. It was a golden age."
—Earl Sinclair
"I do have respect for authority even though I throw jelly dicks at them.
Carson wrote:Any coach that would rely on continually bunting against this guy would be selling his batters short while proving he has no business coaching.
If that's the only way to get on base with a half man/ half robot pitching, then you do it.
The kid will hamstring, so to speak, his defense by having to play so far in because he can't field his position.
