I have two girls. Two ballet dancing, nail polish wearing, skirt sportin little girls. These are not tough girls. These are normal, nice and fairly mannerly little girls. This summer they decided they wanted to sign up for baseball? Okay, I signed them up. Visions of hot summer nights, baseball cheers and team camaraderie in my head. The youngest is on the “Mites”, the oldest on the “Squirts” team. Sounds sweet and innocent right?
I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
My girls had their first tournament this weekend.
Let the shocking behaviour begin. I heard parents from another team yelling “Run with your elbows out.”, “Get that kid!”, “Knock her down.” Are you kidding me? These girls are 9-12 and you want to bruise them up? Wait, was I in the wrong place? Was this hockey?
Then I saw a brazen act that truly blew my mind. A 12 year old girl was encouraged, no, told to, run an opposing player over at home plate. Run. Her. Over. Might I add there was not even a play going on at home plate! (for those of you who don’t speak baseball, the baseball was way out in the outfield, the back catcher was two feet away from home plate, the runner had to swerve to knock her down, this my friends was very bad form) The opposing coach had that little ball player plough our catcher down, on purpose. Oh, and did I mention we were being beaten 14- 0 at the time? WTH? Needless to say this “play” did not go over very well with anyone, but especially the Daddy’s of our team.
Snarky words were exchanged. There was some yelling. Then Opposing Coach challenged Random Dad to a fist fight? Huh? Drama. Too tense for me! All the while the little girls pay the price. At first crying from pain or shock, then perhaps tears of fear. I didn’t sign my girls up for this!
I have heard about and seen crazy “hockey parents”, I had no idea there were “obsessed baseball parents”. Go ahead and tell me. Is this normal? Should there ever be crying in baseball?
Sigh. It’s going to be a long summer.
It’s mind boggling to me that parents would exude that kind of behavior but it also doesn’t surprise me.
What should really happen is, those adults that do this shitty behavior should join there own teams and if you want to be like that then you should have to stand up for yourself. If you want to be a bully then you should have to fight yourself, not get the kids involved