Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

---

H A W A I I _ S P O R T S

Notebook

Saturday, July 22, 2000

Mail Box

West coach responds to
tournament incident

This is in response to Dave Reardon's article (Isle Team Will Be Best of West, July 1), which featured a semifinal tournament game between West Oahu and Dallas Titans in the Best of the West Tournament at Aloha Stadium.

Dallas coach Matt Buettner was quoted as saying, "West Oahu coaches have no control over their team, the talking, the attitude."

First thing first. I am the West Oahu head coach and proud of it. Let me give some facts for those who were not in attendance.

I will be the first to admit that there was lots of trash talking from both sides of the field, but the team that kept its composure came out ahead.

None of the West Oahu players got ejected from the game, Dallas had one (ejection) for poor sportsmanship.

After the loss, a Dallas player threw a ball into center field out of frustration, which the tournament director made this individual retrieve. One Dallas player spit in our player's batting helmet.

After a controversial call involving one of the West Oahu batters, he got beaned twice in consecutive at bats and the second time the Dallas coach was witnessed flashing the bean signal to the catcher. The tournament officials stated that Dallas would never be invited to this tournament again because of their poor attitudes and the coach's inability to control his players, while next year West Oahu will make its seventh straight appearance.

After the game for security reasons the two teams needed to remain apart, thus shaking hands was out of the question. But in good gesture the West Oahu coaches went over to shake hands with the Dallas players only to be yelled, swore at, and called names by the Dallas parents.

Dallas ended up with a 2-3-1 record in the tournament. All three losses were to Hawaii teams so it's understandable why (the coach) would badmouth the Hawaii teams. Dallas even got into a confrontation with Central Oahu, but Central coach Blaine Muraoka did a wonderful job of keeping his team focused and went on to victory, as did the West Oahu staff.

Dallas had three games with confrontations, all three games they lost. I wonder what the common factor is? Could it be poor sportsmanship?

It seems like there is a correlation here with the Dallas team losing and confrontations. So now I ask the question: "Who has no control of their players?"

The answer is obvious, Coach Buettner.

Devin Fukunaga

West Oahu Select Baseball

LETTERS GUIDE We welcome all letters regarding sports issues and stories. Letters of over 200 words will be used only if they are deemed to have special merit. The Star-Bulletin reserves the right to edit any letter for clarity and length. Letters must be signed, with a daytime telephone number. You can send us a letter by: Mail, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802, attention sports editor; email, sports@starbulletin.com; or fax, 808-525-5497.