Brooks College Prep assistant baseball coach Anthony Beale — Chicago Sun TimesA major race row has emerged in Chicago, where a high school baseball game between two public schools scheduled for an evening start time was postponed because one school’s parents were allegedly afraid for their children’s safety at the rival South Side academy.

As reported by both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times, as well as Chicago ABC affiliate WLS and a handful of other outlets, a scheduled prep baseball game for Chicago (Ill.) Walter Payton College Prep at Chicago (Ill.) Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep was cancelled when parents from the Payton Prep program allegedly raised concerns about the safety of their children in the Roseland neighborhood where Brooks is located.

Roseland is a section of Chicago’s South Side that has experienced a large amount of gun and gang violence over the previous 12-18 months.

"The parents didn't want to come down here due to the neighborhood we were in," Brooks assistant coach Bert Redmond told WLS. "They were in fear of their child's lives. They were afraid of being in a drive by shooting. I was kind of appalled."

So were many other Chicago parents and residents, who accused the Brooks parents of acting out racist biases for cancelling the matchup. To his credit, the coach of the Payton squad, William Wittleder, traveled to the game to apologize to his counterpart at Brooks and the Brooks squad, later specifically citing parental concerns as the primary reason why the game was cancelled in interviews with the media.

As one might expect, that didn’t go over well with the Brooks players, who live in the neighborhood that their counterparts from Payton Prep allegedly didn’t feel safe traveling to.

"It's heartbreaking to know a team wouldn't play us because of the location of our stadium,” Brooks player David McKnight told WLS. “We come out here every day and we dedicate our lives to playing the sport of baseball.”

The schools moved quickly to smooth over hurt feelings between the academies, with the principals from both schools issuing a joint statement on the incident, saying that they were looking forward to future interactions between the schools. Separately, Payton principal Tim Devine issued a statement to his own students claiming that the game was cancelled because of poor communication on the part of the Payton coach and not any racial tendencies on the part of the team’s parents.

Lithonia (Ga.) High is looking for a new boys basketball coach. The search became necessary after the school’s previous coach, Barry Browner, was fired on Friday for one of the strangest reasons imaginable: He allowed a Harlem Shake video to be filmed in his classroom.

As reported by Atlanta TV network WSB-TV, Browner was terminated after a video featuring the coach and the students in one of his classes emerged on YouTube. In the video, an unidentified student jumps on top of a classroom table and begins gyrating in a style typically used to start off the viral Harlem Shake videos that exploded on the web in March and April.

At first, Browner appears to lash out at the student, emploring him to sit down and stop acting out. Instead -- in a move more telegraphed than a Michael Bay plot -- the other students in the class hop up on top of the tables and begin Harlem shaking, too.

About a minute into the video, Browner can be seen dancing along happily, taking part in a viral video trend that had long since swept the nation.

While the entire video seems innocent enough, it has sparked outrage at both its very existence and the punishment it engendered by different groups of DeKalb County residents. While some were quick to say that dancing like that performed in Harlem Shake videos belongs nowhere near a school, others accused the Lithonia administration of taking the entire incident a bit too seriously.

Two of those opposing viewpoints were juxtaposed back-to-back in a WSB video piece detailing the coach’s discipline.

“We have a classroom setting,” DeKalb county resident Eric Lockett told the TV network. “We have a bunch of students acting like savages, dancing on top of the desks and we have the teacher acknowledging that and participating in it.

“It’s the teacher’s responsibility to keep order in the classroom. He has to lead by example and he wasn’t leading by example."

One would think just surviving life would be difficult enough when one is blind. It is, yet that hasn’t stopped Arizona teen Aria Ottmueller from challenging herself to do things that most fully-sighted human beings would find remarkably difficult on their own; Ottmueller qualified for the Arizona track and field state championships in the pole vault.

Mary Cain set another national record at the Drake Relays — AP

Mary Cain just keeps running along. Indoor, outdoor, it doesn’t matter, if you put the teen on a track, she’s ready to set a record.

The latest national mark in Cain’s evolving storied career came at the Drake Relays, where she finished sixth in the Invitational 1,500 meters. Cain was the only amateur competing against professionals in one of the nation’s top annual track and field events, but held her own by holding close to the lead pack.

Cain crossed the finish line at 4:10.77, a shade under her previous national scholastic outdoor record of 4:11.01, a mark recorded at the World Championships in Barcelona in July 2012. The Drake event was won by 2012 U.S. Olympian Jenny Simpson with a time of 4:03.35. That was good for a Drake Relays record, proving tangentially that Cain could remain a factor even in one of the fastest races at one of America’s most prestigious events.

None of this is to say that Cain’s feats are coming easily. The junior told the Des Moines Register that the blazing 1,500 meter pace clearly took a lot out of her.

"I really tried to keep up,” Cain told the newspaper. “I think based on my training I can do even better next time ... I felt so tired. They were running so fast."

A nasty brawl between two New Jersey rivals has left both teams’ seasons and a parent in police custody after both teams had their entire rosters ejected.

The entire Red Bank baseball team was ejected after a brawl against Rumson-Fair Haven — BeRecruited

The unseemly incident erupted in Little Silver, New Jersey, where the Little Silver (N.J.) Red Bank Regional High baseball team was hosting Rumson-Fair Haven (N.J.) High (R-FH). With the score tied 1-1, a Red Bank runner attempted to score after a botched suicide squeeze bunt by barging into home plate with a shoulder-block slide, an aggressive move aimed at taking out the catcher. The R-FH catcher in question didn’t take kindly to the tactic and came up swinging at the runner.

From there, a two-man fight morphed into a two-team brawl, with both benches emptying and a full-fledged melee ensuing. According to the Asbury Park Press, 22 R-FH players were ejected, as were 14 of their counterparts from Red Bank. And while coaches quickly swung into action to try and break up the brawl, they couldn’t keep the students from each other until it was already too late.

“The coaching staffs of both schools acted swiftly and as best as they could,” Vinny Smith, the game’s umpire, told the Press. “They did a commendable job in trying to break it up and they were very cooperative at the end of the game.”

The Rumson Fair Haven could miss the playoffs after a massive brawl — USA Today

The coaches were certainly more cooperative than the parents, one of whom charged on to the field to get involved in the fight himself. Police records showed that 49-year-old Rumson resident Patrick Maisto was charged with simple assault after charging on to the field and attacking a Red Bank player.

Naturally, the consequences for Maisto’s action could be severe, though the toll for the two teams involved could be equally caustic. NJSIAA, the governing body for all high school sports in New Jersey, calls for a mandatory two game ban for any player ejected for a game for any sort of unsportsmanlike conduct. That would mean that both teams will forfeit their next two games by default.

Usually, a squeeze play only gets attention when it works. This one didn’t, but the runner still scored anyway. All the credit for that goes to the runner, who pulled off one of the more ingenious moves in recent baseball history, if not baseball history altogether.

Shooting suspect Joshua Chi — Vallejo Police Department

It’s just the latest case of youth sports parents gone bad, but it’s a particularly disturbing one: A man is accused of shooting at the father of a California Little League t-ball division player as he attempted to drive away from the field.

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, 23-year-old Vallejo resident Joshua Chi was arrested on Thursday and charged with attempted murder and violation of his probation.

The newspaper gave no indication as to what caused the argument between Chi and the intended victim, nor did it disclose what Chi had earned a probation for, but the incident understandably sent shock waves throughout the Northern California youth sports scene, with the North Vallejo Little League canceling games for a number of days following the shooting.

"It is our every intention to remain strong and vigilant against any negative influence within our fences," North Vallejo Little League wrote on its Facebook page. "Even though we know we will sometimes disagree, we will strive to maintain calm, mutual respect and self-dignity while resolving all conflicts."

According to the Chronicle, the two men began arguing in the parking lot adjacent to the North Vallejo Little League complex. As the argument began to become more heated, the father in question quickly retreated to his car and attempted to drive away, only to allegedly be fired upon by Chi.

Student managers hold a special place in the heart of American prep sports. They are the dedicated athletes who don’t compete, those who are relegated to handing out towels and dealing with Gatorade cups willingly, all while their classmates receive the willing adulation of their peers in the crowd.

Yet it has become a tradition across the country for programs to flip the script for at least a game, having student managers compete in at least one varsity game as a homage to their dedication to the program. Never has that symbolic gesture been more moving than in Fairfax Virginia, where the Fairfax (Va.) High baseball program pulled out all the stops to ensure that student manager Drew Bonner could have a varsity at-bat against Fairfax (Va.) Madison High.

As reported by the Washington Post, Bonner’s appearance required plenty of special plans because the teen suffers from a condition called Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Bonner was able to participate in normal activities like baseball until the age of 11, when his Duchenne advanced to a point where it became debilitating for his general movement. He continued to walk until age 14, when Bonner had to give in and use a wheelchair.

That’s still how the Fairfax senior gets around, and is how he rolled to the plate in the bottom of the first inning against Madison. After making his way to the plate, Bonner watched four pitches from Madison pitcher Nick Brady sail by, granting him a free pass to first base.

That’s when things went from being memorable to truly special. Before Bonner’s teammates could reach him to celebrate, the Madison squad had already surrounded the wheelchair-bound teen to congratulate him enthusiastically on reaching base, all to a cacophonous backdrop of “D-Bo” chants.

“It was a lot of fun and brought back some good memories from when I used to play,” Bonner told the Post. “I wasn’t nervous, but I was pretty excited. I can remember playing baseball all my life and it’s just one of the things that I really love to do.

“I was kind of ready for anything. If [the pitches] were close enough in, I would have taken a poke.”

Hey, he was wearing eye black, so why not?

Student manager Drew Bonner took his lone varsity at-bat in a wheelchair — YouTube

For Bonner, the opponent was as important as his place on the Fairfax squad. Madison is a perennial state power, so giving up a ceremonial walk holds a bit of extra relevance, but Madison is also particularly important for Bonner because it was where he began as a student manager. The Eagle Scout first became a student manager in seventh grade at Madison before eventually transferring to Fairfax for high school.

That’s where Bonner has flourished, motor skills be damned. In addition to earning his Eagle Scout rank, Bonner has served as the student manager for three Fairfax varsity sports teams and was named as a member of the school’s homecoming court. In recent months he capped those achievements with an academic scholarship to study computer science at the University of Virginia.