Letter From A Baseball Parent: Special Kind of Stupid

OK, here we go again Muscle Shoals. First and foremost, everyone must realize that we’re talking about the baseball team and not the FOOTBALL team. If this were the FOOTBALL team this article would have never appeared in the newspaper. According to principal Chad Holden, their conduct has consequences but he’s not going to tell you what it is. Just “trust him” because the “check’s in the mail”. Guess Holden thinks the non-football athletes and parents are a special kind of stupid and maybe we are for putting up with this type of shenanigans. 

Chad Holden, we don’t trust anything you say because you’re just a puppet on a string for the FOOTBALL coach and the Superintendent. Pray tell how these young student athletes should act and behave considering the role models put before them (liars, cheaters, adulterers, wife beaters, etc). Last year a FOOTBALL coach / defensive coordinator, Chris Balentine, beat his wife to a bloody pulp in front of his children and yes Mr. Holden, there was a consequence for his actions……..he was suspended from coaching for one game.

WOW! Now that’s punishment at its highest degree. And please don’t say this is a slanderous lie because, guess what, we have a copy of the original police report filed on Balentine which goes into explicit detail of the beating and stomping his wife received. Then, the FOOTBALL coach, Honorable Scott Basden, was caught recruiting a student athlete from another school. What happens, Basden uses the already tarnished image of Chris Balentine as the scapegoat for this violation, suspends him and was ultimately going to fire him. However, according to Muscle Shoals school personnel, 

Balentine’s adulterous affair girlfriend, who was the school’s XXXX apparently knew a little too much about how athletes were being brought in and academic provisions made for them (guess that’s how one of the prestigious FOOTBALL players got all the way to the University of Alabama on a FOOTBALL scholarship before it was determined he couldn’t read past an elementary level). Apparently she threatened to spill the beans and BAM!!!, Balentine wasn’t fired but rather allowed to sit at another school and draw full pay until his one year suspension with the AHSAA was over. Just hope Balentine appreciates her loyalty and doesn’t get drunk and beat the h*// out of her someday.

Fast forward to Spring Break 2017…..a few members of the baseball team made a bad youthful decision and drank alcohol while in Destin, Florida. They have now been suspended for one month and Coach Fowler has been suspended for the remainder of the season. All for a sip or two of alcohol. If only they had been members of the FOOTBALL faMily, they could have walked away free as a bird and their indiscretion would have merely been discounted as a childish action that had been given harsh punishment, (they would have to sell at least one extra coupon book for the FOOTBALL team this year or worse yet, a bed mattress)! 

FOOTBALL is KING at MSHS and how dare anyone dispute that fact! Bottom line, if these were FOOTBALL players involved, they would have simply been placed in a “REHABILITATION” program for student athletes (Rewind to XXXXX). Either way, we’ll take our punishment because the baseball players and Coach Fowler aren’t a bunch of little whiny cry babies who implode when they don’t get their way. We’ll live to play another day but we hope one day all the lies and deceit flowing from Mr. Holden’s mouth will catch up with him and what a payday that will be. Are the people of Muscle Shoals proud of what our school athletic program has become? I hope not but until later, TROJAN BASEBALL - STAND TOGETHER and REMAIN STRONG -----TEAM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*****

A few points on various issues:

1. We've edited the above statement to remove two names/offices.

2. For those who criticized "errors" in numbers in our original report of those suspended from Muscle Shoals baseball team, we erred on under reporting of what we knew at time...not over reporting. We corrected the number in our regular blog. The first set of information came from a team family member who reported what could then be verified and the second set of info came from people highly placed in the Muscle Shoals School System.

3. When a person commits an illegal/immoral/stupid act, either underage drinking or posting nude photos, those who commit the act are responsible for the consequences, not those who report/prosecute it.

4. To the Muscle Shoals mom who gave us our laugh today, many thanks. If you missed her foul-mouthed tirade, she says she's been banned by classier acts than our blog. And we wonder why our children fail in life...

5. While on the subject referred to in No. 4, why is it so hard to understand that we don't tolerate gutter language? Use it, and we'll not publish your comment, delete your comment if it's on FB, and quite possibly ban you. If you think you're intelligent enough to have a valid argument, why aren't you intelligent enough to make it without sounding like a drunken sailor?

6. Tomorrow we'll have a blog from Concerned Citizen 101 who has quite a few interesting things to say about UNA. It's a must read for every taxpayer.