Little League Parents

Cameron is playing "transitional league" baseball this spring. This is in-between T-Ball and Little League. In Transitional, a pitching machine is used. Cameron is really enjoying it and we enjoy going to his games.

But some of the parents? Wow, the term "Little League Parents" certainly applies here. I hadn't been around this for a long time so I forgot how parents could make total jerks of themselves. At a game earlier this week, we sat in front of a mom who blamed absolutely everything that went wrong on the coach. A kid throws to the wrong base? Coaches fault. A kid forgets to tag the base and get the runner out? Coaches fault for not teaching the fundamentals. Their kid, as we were told, had the 3rd highest batting average last year. This year? Coaches fault, he's not hitting as good. Each time he came to bat, the dad would go right up to the backstop and shout out instructions, in full range of the coach.

The coach is a wonderful guy named Randy, who is active in the local church and whose wife and Dorene go way back to their days as undergraduates at IU South Bend. He's very calm, and that also was cited as a fault. Keep in mind, these are 7-8 year old players. They may still get things together in time to get drafted by the majors out of college, but my oh my, we were both taken aback at just how bad they acted.

As the dad crouched down behind the backstop to shout out instructions to his son, I wanted to point out to him the sign just above that reads, in part:

Welcome to North Liberty Youth League
Let the players play
Let the coaches coach

Amen to that.