Players change teams for lots of reasons, most all of them valid. Maybe you want to play with your friends, or on a specific night of the week, or in a particular division against better or worse competition. Maybe you moved to a different neighborhood, or changed jobs, or your job moved across town, and getting to home games suddenly became a pain in the ass. Maybe the team you’re on doesn’t like to practice, or maybe they never enter a tournament. Maybe you’re not getting as much game time as you’d like, or at a specific position on the field.

Most reasons are valid. But wow, some really are not.

“I fully support the 5&5 thing, but…”

No, no “but”. Nothing after “but” is valid.

“I want to be in a club that’s more inclusive.” (This was from a guy that got benched in favor of the “automatic out” to play 5&4, so the lineup would be compliant with the ideology of 5&5.)

At who’s expense, exactly? I’ll tell you: women players. Women that have been asked to sit on the bench in favor of an extra man on the field, for years. But now a man is asked to take that spot on the bench, all hell breaks loose?

Even when we don’t have five women to take the field, we’re still playing as if we were 5&5, and that means if we have six men, we’re still going to play 5&5. Was that not excrutiatingly clear when I declared we would never field a 6&4 lineup in 2022? Or did you think I’d cave in to the pressure, even though I said I would not do that?

So there’s this dislike of gender equality (5&5). What other not-so-valid reason might someone leave their softball team?

Forfeits. No one likes them, not the team giving it and not the team taking it, because ultimately both teams are deprived of playing softball.

But c’mon people, it’s not the end of the world. It’s a fucking softball game. Players get sick, injured, have to work, have to parent, and have to deal with emergencies. Even funerals happen. When these things all happen in the same day you play softball, you may — gasp! — have to forfeit a game! And exactly like only fielding a 5&5 team, I was crystal clear that I would not be afraid to forfeit a game if the situation arose. I would not seek special treatment to reschedule a game, and I would not try to pull players from all corners of the globe just to “fulfill the fixture”. Nope, sorry — and if you don’t like it, tough. A team captain has to make tough decisions, but to be honest this one ain’t so tough, especially when you’ve expected this sort of thing to happen.

If that sounds like a dictatorship — it is! While the team captain (that’s me) has a responsibility to listen to the players’ opinions, there is no obligation to implement them. It would be chaos, a headless, rudderless ship floating aimlessly in an ocean of nonsense. I like to think it is a benevolent dictatorship, but maybe not everyone sees it the same way.

So when is the “final straw”? Apparently, when someone has had enough can come in the most interesting of ways. Normally, there is no ultimate consequence, the player just leaves — nothing needs to be said (though it’d be nice), they just go. And you know what? I’m happy to facilitate them, it’s no big deal really, it’s just a fucking softball game.

Unfortunately, in 2022, it’s not so easy — but it is all listed in the rules. Why do I know this? Because I read the rules. What if that player wants to transfer to another team, but there’s a complaint process that is ongoing (or at least, should be ongoing), where the player could be “subject to proceedings” (such as an interview) arising from the investigation of that complaint? What if the person responsible for performing that complaint investigation, is the same person approving that transfer, but that same person also does not want the complaint to be investigated at all, but then approves the transfer?

There are ramifications: to the player, to the teams involved, to the teams in the league. If it’s not a legal transfer, and the player plays for another team, that’s an illegal player. When a team plays with an illegal player, that game is forfeit.

Yep, all that happened. I filed a complaint, it wasn’t investigated, and meanwhile a player transferred to another team, because ridiculous, invalid reasons. Hold on to your hats, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!