So … as the plot to this Jackie Robinson West scandal thickens, it’s interesting to note that the Evergreen Park team got beat by the Jackie Robinson West team 42 to 3. That’s right. It’s not a misprint. 42 to 3. In four innings.
Anytime you get whooped up on by a football score on a baseball field, it’s very probable that you’ll walk away with some ill feelings. But in the field of sports, especially youth sports, it happens sometimes. You chalk it up. You get over it. You move on.
Obviously, coach Chris Janes didn’t.
As he saw the JRW team taking its media tour around the country, having parades and meeting presidents and whatnot, Janes probably couldn’t take it. I can see the scenario in my mind. Janes is at home — or at work — watching this kids get celebrated for doing something that had never been done before. And instead of looking at his own Black wife, and at his own, presumably, biracial children, and recognizing the cultural pride that they might glean from such an accomplishment, he was probably too caught up in his own emotions and damaged ego to see any of the good that his team’s butt whooping was apart of.
And even though teams have been fudging the rules for years, including his own, at that moment in time, his ego was in full mitch mode, so he rattled off a letter accusing JRW of cheater status. “They only beat us like that cause they’ve got all those ringers,” he probably thought to himself. His bruised ego led him all the way down a path where he ended up beating up on some children and breaking the hearts of a nation, all for something that adults should handle and be accountable for.
Where they do that at? Oh. My bad … forget I even asked.
