{"id":359967,"date":"2022-01-18T06:04:44","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T20:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=359967"},"modified":"2022-01-18T06:04:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T20:04:44","slug":"never-believed-in-9th-place-trophies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/never-believed-in-9th-place-trophies\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Never believed in 9th place trophies\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
Saipan Baseball League president Jay Santos gives members of the CNMI national baseball team pool a pep talk during the first day of tryouts at the Oleai track and field ampitheater in November 2021.
(MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Responding to a call to give automatic slots for players from Tinian and Rota in the CNMI National Baseball Team, Saipan Baseball League\u2019s outspoken president Jay Santos has this to say: \u201cMy thoughts are these\u2026I never believed in 9th place trophies. I never believed in participation trophies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Triple J executive, however, acknowledged that players from Tinian and Rota have talent but still not at par with their counterparts on Saipan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players from those island were really good athletes but we\u2019ve been asked by [the Northern Marianas Sports Association] and the organizing committee for the Mini Games to put forth our best 20 players to compete and win the Games.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CNMI will host its first ever Pacific Mini Games this year with the CNMI National Baseball Team serving as defending champions of the quadrennial event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe in providing automatic slots for those specific islands and the reason I believe this is we\u2019re not going to do them any favors as well\u2026The mindset will be \u2018maybe I don\u2019t need to work so hard because I\u2019m gonna be automatic anyway.\u2019 And that just doesn\u2019t work for me and it doesn\u2019t work for manager Manny (Sablan) and any of the coaches (Deron Sablan and Gary Cruz),\u201d added Santos.<\/p>\n

The SBL president also assured players from Tinian and Rota that SBL will be assisting them to improve their talent pool so that in the next regional competition their players will have a chance to become part of the CNMI national team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey put forth effort and they were talented but unfortunately they just didn\u2019t made the cut. I don\u2019t agree having automatic slots for those islands and I\u2019m hopeful that after the Mini Games the Saipan Baseball League will assist those guys by proving equipment or whatever to further baseball on those islands so they can be more competitive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It can be recalled that Tinian Amateur Sports Association president Jose Kiyoshi batted for automatic slots for Tinian and Rota baseball players after Tinian players Dustin Sablan, Peter Cepeda, Bradley Lizama, and Bing Sablan and Rota players Luis Hocog and Daniel Rangamar didn\u2019t make the first cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the disadvantages Tinian and Rota face every time we have the opportunity to try out for the national team. My thoughts are they should give two automatic slots for Tinian and Rota in the national team,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune<\/i> in a social media message in late December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Responding to a call to give automatic slots for players from Tinian and Rota in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":359971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-359967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}