Missing the point of the game

To the editor,
As a member of the International Falls VFW baseball team, I was shocked to look at Friday’s paper to find an article (on the Opinion Page, from Our Web column) slamming my team about not being disciplined and not wearing matching uniforms and hats. Also, the article tells our coach that he should “step up to the plate” and provide guidance. This is very judgmental and out of place.
Baseball is a game that everyone on our team enjoys to go out and play. To see this article bashing us about our uniforms not matching and even our hair styles is disappointing. Everyone on the team was upset and stunned that someone would think they had the right to tell us that we weren’t disciplined and to say that the VFW needs to field a team of young men who want to win, but also, to learn and grow as young men. It’s also said in the article that the players disrespected their team by failing to adhere to a common standard. The only person disrespecting our VFW team at the moment is the writer of Friday’s article. I would expect a grad of the school to support our team, not tell us that we are not disciplined. If you are going to disrespect the team, then have the courage to sign your name.
What really angers me the most is how the writer judges us. Don’t tell us that we need guidance and discipline when you don’t know the half of it. We don’t go out on the field everyday to show off our great matching hats and uniforms. We show up everyday to play the game we love. We show up, not to individualize, but to get better at baseball and have fun.
The (writer) Agitated Grad also tells our coach in the article to provide guidance to us. My coach has provided good leadership and taught us many things about life; like not to give up when the going gets tough. To judge my coach when you don’t know everything he has done for the team is ridiculous.
It really saddens me to see an article like that right at the start of our team’s playoffs. Instead of getting support from a grad, we get an article criticizing us about the team’s appearance. Martin Luther King once said, “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
The same can be said for the Falls VFW team. Don’t judge my teammates and my coach by our uniforms and hair styles. If you sat in our dugout during one of our games then you might realize that the team is quite respectable. It saddens me to see an article like this when the writer of the article clearly doesn’t know all the facts. I hope that the Agitated Grad hasn’t put a bad image on a very respectable team.
Chad Sohlman
International Falls, MN