After learning what we learned (but mostly already knew) at the 2025 Softball Leinster Annual General Meeting (SL AGM), it would be useful to clarify a few things before the 2026 season. With that in mind, let’s consider a few questions for the league committee to answer.

“Do we know which teams paid to play for last season, and do you have access to the accounts?”

“As there seems to be no consequence to not paying the season team fee, why would anyone pay?”

“As cheered by members at the AGM that ‘gamesmanship’ is to be an accepted part of the game, and because performative lying to the league regarding postponing and rescheduling games (and the league lying about the lying) during the 2025 season endured no negative consequence, what process does a team captain need to follow, and what level of lying is acceptable, in order to postpone and reschedule a game, to be as acceptable as it was in 2025? Also, is there a scale of lying, or is it all in a singular category under ‘gamesmanship’?”

“Some teams may not want to use legal equipment. Since we already disregard game start times and what is a legal lineup and rules about rescheduling games upon agreement among team captains, can we also agree to disregard other rules, such as for bases, bats, balls, field dimensions, and uniforms, without consequence? If some teams collude to do this, but others don’t, even though that’s obviously unfair, that’s just ‘gamesmanship’, and therefore ‘a part of the game’, right?”

“Can the division winners be determined now? The league may appreciate the additional time to get the trophies engraved, in preparation for the end-of-season party you can have for yourselves.”

Cynical? Negative? Petty? Childish? Extreme? This is not my fault: the league’s membership made it have to be this way.

The league could have dealt with my official complaint against an umpire for sexually harassing a player in 2022; instead they buried it. The governing body could have honestly dealt with the league’s failure; instead they endorsed it.

When the league covered up a sexual harassment complaint against an umpire in 2022, and the governing body endorsed that action in finding there was nothing unethical in covering it up, they made it have to be this way.

The league membership could have accepted there was only one nominee for league committee chair at the 2023 AGM, a person who was interested in accountability, truth, transparency, and honesty; instead they chose oppression.

When the league membership assembled a mob at the 2023 AGM to enforce a made-up “confidence vote” to eliminate the sole nominee for the league committee chair because they didn’t like him for publicly telling the truth about the committee’s lying and incompetence in accounting for league funds, they made it have to be this way.

The league could have provided oversight when asked to reschedule games in 2025, but didn’t even achieve that low bar, and when the liars were caught lying about it, the league could have been honest, investigated, and levied a penalty for cheating; instead when the league chairperson realized they’d been lied to, they also lied about it and did nothing, hoping no one would notice nor care.

When the league membership colluded to fix games by lying to the league during the 2025 season, and the league chairperson tried to cover it up by lying even more, they made it have to be this way.

If you disagree with this, at best you’re complicit and you’re a doormat. You’re a sucker. You will get trampled over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. The time for tolerance and compromise and “finding a middle ground” is so far gone.

They made it have to be this way.