A lesson in baseball and integrity

The late Roger Tremaine was indisputably a baseball lover. One of the founders of the Continental Amateur Baseball Association and its first national executive director, Tremaine worked year round to make the amateur baseball experience something that participants woud remember forever. He wanted to celebrate the purity of the sport, played for the joy of the game without the interference of winning at any cost. Tremaine embodied the joke about baseball lovers; when he wasn't watching or talking about baseball, he was in bed dreaming about it.

Treamine passed away in October nine months before a nearly legendary on-the-field performance by a group of 9-year-olds from Woodstock, Ill. There can be little doubt that this team embodied all that he imagined when CABA was just a fledgling organization in the Cincinnati suburbs of the late 80s.

This year's CABA tournament in Crystal Lake, Ill. featured teams from the US, Japan and Peurto Rico. It was truly a world series.

The tournament represented the pinnacle of summer baseball for 15, 11 and 9-year-old players from all over the globe. The Woodstock team of 9-year-olds — the city's first ever entry into the tournament — drank in all of the splendor of the event.

For some, it will be as close to sports fame as they ever come; for others it will be the first in a long string of life's successes. But for those who saw the team play, for those who agonized over each loss, reveled in each win, the team will forever be lionized for what they did on the field. They may not have been major leaguers, but for a brief week in Woodstock they were just as admired, just as important.

They were four outs away from advancing to the championship round after playing as a team for only two weeks. An amazing accomplishment.

But one thing that most people don't know, something most never heard is that had the team's manager been a less honorable man, the team might have won what turned out to be their last game.

One of the rules of CABA is that pitchers may pitch for only so many innings during the tournament. The rule protects young arms from permanent injury. After each game, tournament directors generate a list of all the players and how many innings each has left to pitch. On that Friday afternoon, Steve Otten, the Woodstock manager, was given a list that said two of his best pitchers were eligible to pitch. Otten knew these boys had pitched their maximum innings.

Instead of taking advantage of the mistake, Otten reported the error to the tournament director.

The director checked the database and said as far as the tournament was concerned both boys were eligible to pitch. But Otten refused to use them, playing fair were less honest managers would have pitched the two boys and ignored the rules.

Arguably, Otten's honesty cost the team a victory and a spot in the championship. But he taught a lesson to each of those young men about honor and integrity. It was the best part of the tournament and the least known.

Perhaps somewhere Tremaine is telling this story to another baseball lover. If not, let's hope that he dreams of it in his long sleep.