Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Little League

One of my great joys of parenthood was watching my son Sean play baseball. He was a scrappy player who liked to get his uniform dirty, and was a menace on the basepaths (he stole home seven times). Unfortunately, the other players got too big--and Sean couldn't catch up to their fastballs anymore. (You can't steal first).

So, I miss watching him play (he hung up his spikes freshman year of high school), but I absolutely do NOT miss some of the parents at Little League games. More than once I would turn around to remind them something like "these are nine year olds" or something similar to that. Dads and Moms. Screaming at their own kids. Screaming at the other kids. And worst of all, screaming at the parents on the other team. There were several times it felt like we were one step away from a ridiculous confrontation.

Like this, for instance...



For the record, you get this in all sports, but it seems worse in baseball for some reason. It never quite reached levels like this at the hundreds of youth soccer games I've attended and coached.
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