posted
Police: Coach paid kid to hurt disabled teammate Posted: Friday July 15, 2005 5:04PM; Updated: Friday July 15, 2005 5:04PM PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A T-ball coach allegedly paid one of his players $25 to hurt an 8-year-old mentally disabled teammate so he wouldn't have to put the boy in the game, police said Friday.
Mark R. Downs Jr., 27, of Dunbar, is accused of offering one of his players the money to hit the boy in the head with a baseball, police said. Witnesses told police Downs didn't want the boy to play in the game because of his disability.
Police said the boy was hit in the head and in the groin with a baseball just before a game, and didn't play, police said.
"The coach was very competitive," state police Trooper Thomas B. Broadwater said. "He wanted to win."
Downs has an unpublished telephone number and couldn't immediately be reached for comment Friday. It was unclear whether he had an attorney.
He was arrested and arraigned Friday on charges including criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault and corruption of minors. He was released from jail on an unsecured bond.
The alleged assault happened June 27 in North Union Township, about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, authorities said.
The boy's mother asked state police to investigate her son's injuries because she suspected Downs wanted to keep the boy off the field, despite a league rule that required each player to participate in three innings a game, Broadwater said.
Eric Forsythe, the president of the R.W. Clark Youth Baseball League, said Downs had two daughters on the T-ball team.
League organizers investigated accusations against Downs before the T-ball season ended earlier this month but could not prove that he did anything wrong. If Downs is convicted of any crime, he won't be allowed to be a coach next year, Forsythe said. The league is not affiliated with Little League International.
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
IP: Logged |
posted
He should be tied, spread eagle, to the safety fence behind home plate. Parents of the child then given a baseball cannon loaded with a hundred baseballs to use on him.
posted
I'll share one that happened to me, not nearly so overt as this case, but revealing nonetheless. Early in my soccer "career," I lined up a guest player for one of our first few tournaments. All goes well until his mom drops him off the morning of.
As we're talking, she suggests buying Big Red instead of ice/water/Gatorade...
turns out, her group of "parents" on a well-funded team (ours was at-risk, inner-city kids) tried to take advantage of Red Dye #whatever, known to make kids hyper-active...they had some junkfood candy bar they liked, too.
I felt like asking, "Well, hey, let's just get some methamphetamine...wuddya think?" Instead, I simply said we'd stick with water and sports drinks and oranges...
anyway, that was my intro to the lengths some of these youth-sport adults will stoop...i don't know if the above is a spoof, but if true? not surprised...
-------------------- Nashoba Holba Chepulechi Adventures in microcapitalism...
IP: Logged |
posted
it is sad...even with what I've seen first-hand, it's still hard for me to believe the twisted degree some of these characters get their egos vested in children's games. If all that guy gets is a one-year suspension from coaching...yikes...he should be banned from any youth activity for life.
-------------------- Nashoba Holba Chepulechi Adventures in microcapitalism...
IP: Logged |
quote:"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself." -- Thomas Paine [/QB]
Glass... you really do undertand the battle in Iraq. How wonderfull
-------------------- Spend Word For Word With Me And Your Wit Shall Be Made Bankrupt
IP: Logged |
quote:"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself." -- Thomas Paine
Glass... you really do undertand the battle in Iraq. How wonderfull [/QB]
told ya i warnt no liberal..
i just have some problems with the way they balanced the checkbook... and i don't mean JUST money....
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
IP: Logged |
'I did something ignorant' Coach to stand trial for offering T-ball bounty Posted: Thursday July 28, 2005 5:37PM; Updated: Thursday July 28, 2005 7:51PM
Mark R. Downs Jr. will have to stand trial and face numerous charges. AP
UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Standing so he could be seen from the witness stand, a youth baseball player calmly told a courtroom how he beaned a mentally disabled teammate with a ball during warm-ups to knock the boy out of the game.
Eight-year-old Keith Reese said that he hit teammate Harry Bowers because his coach offered him $25 to do so.
A district judge ordered T-ball coach Mark R. Downs Jr. to stand trial on charges including criminal solicitation to commit assault after both boys testified at a preliminary hearing Thursday.
Downs, 27, of Dunbar, is accused of offering the payment to Reese before a June 27 playoff game.
Prosecutors claim Downs did not want Bowers to play because the boy isn't as talented as other players. Bowers has a speech impairment, a form of autism and mild mental retardation, said his mother, Jennifer Bowers.
Downs' attorney, Thomas W. Shaffer, denied the allegations.
But Reese, fidgeting occasionally and often resting his arms on the witness stand, did not waver in his accusations.
"He told me if I would hit Harry in the face, he would pay me $25," Reese, wearing a T-shirt and shorts, told a small courtroom crammed with spectators.
Reese said the coach wanted Bowers out of the game. His first throw hit Bowers in the groin area, the second in the head.
After the first throw, Downs "told me to go out there and hit him harder. So I went out and hit him in the ear," Reese said.
The victim's mother said the beaning left her son's ear beet-red and slightly bloody.
Reese said he had never warmed up with Bowers before; he usually tossed the ball around with two other teammates on the Falcons.
Reese's father, Keith Reese Sr., said he thought something was wrong. "I told my wife I don't know why Keith's warming up with Harry because Harry can't even catch the ball and Keith's very good."
After her son was hit, Bowers said the coach suggested her son sit out the game, which he did. "He said the balls must be after him," she testified.
Downs will be arraigned Sept. 15 in Fayette County court on two counts of criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault and one count each of corruption of minors, criminal conspiracy and recklessly endangering another person.
The elder Reese said that after the playoff game, the coach admitted to having offered the younger Reese money to hurt his teammate.
"He told me, 'I did something ignorant. I told [Keith] I'd give him $25 to hit Harry in the face to take him out of the game,"' Reese said.
The coach's attorney said his client likely was referring to a previous game, when Downs jokingly told his team he'd offer $25 to "anybody who can line drive the ref with the ball" when he was cautioned by the umpire.
But the elder Reese said it wasn't the first time the coach indicated he wanted to keep Bowers from playing. Reese said Downs had called his home at one point during the playoffs and said that if Bowers' mother called, "you just tell her the game's canceled, we're not going to play it."'
The younger Reese said Downs never paid him. When the boy asked for the money after the game, which the Falcons won, the coach said he'd get the $25 if he signed up for the fall season, the boy testified.
The team is part of the R.W. Clark Youth Baseball League, which ended its T-ball season earlier this month. The game was in nearby North Union Township, 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
League President Eric Forsythe said league officials looked into accusations against Downs before the season ended, but could not prove the coach did anything wrong. But Forsythe said neither of the boys involved in the incident was interviewed.
League organizers have said Downs won't be allowed to coach again if he is convicted of criminal charges. Shaffer said Downs is not suspended and remains a coach in the league.
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
