I am no longer a Bearcat. What exactly is a “bearcat” anyway? Apparently there is such an animal, called a binturong (Arctictis binturong), in southeast Asia. Related to neither bears nor cats, we are also alike in that we no longer play softball for the team of the same name. Firstly, it is very unfortunate
Don’t piss in my ear and tell me it’s raining. I have no confidence in anything the league (Softball Leinster) or national governing body (Softball Ireland) says, and below you’ll see why. They twist words and spin meanings to manipulate and obfuscate, and it doesn’t bode well in the search for truth or justice. Please
If you’ve been following along, you’d be aware that there was no official investigation into a complaint I filed about a sexual harassment charge levied against an umpire in a Softball Leinster game; however, there was an unofficial, private, anonymous, secret, confidential investigation, and it has yielded… an apology. “Hi Judy,I would like to apologise
Sometimes it is useful to boil things down to their most basic components, in order to get some clarity. I filed a sexual harassment complaint.A league administrator suppressed it, and nothing was done.The national governing body thinks this is fine.No one has been held accountable for either instance of serious misconduct (the sexual harassment, or
Before this season started, I made a declaration: I would only field a 5&5 (or 5&4 short) team for the entire season. Many team captains agreed this was a good thing. More than lip service, I wanted to show we are committed to having gender equality in the sport, as the WBSC rules want the
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
Fourteen calendar days: that’s the time during which Softball Leinster (SL) has to complete an investigation into a complaint (aka “request for disciplinary action”) once that complaint has been submitted. This is according to their own rules, which they published on their own website, in a document called “Captain’s / Team Guide” — but rules
Who would have thought that being a whistleblower would have invited so much abuse, personal attack, lies, slander, invective and vitriol? Probably every whistleblower, ever. Well, it had to be done. The good thing is the ramifications were negligible: no job loss, no jail time, no fine, no real penalty. And like in most all
When Rob Atkinson and I pushed to enter a team from Castleknock into the Premier division, there were a few things we needed to do differently. First, we were going to commit to playing at a high level. That’d include practicing (what?), showing up on time (another rare event in our league), quite simply taking