Win or Lose.. it's how you play the game

I have been accused of being a ferocious Mama Bear without reason on occasion and I will fully admit that I can be at times. But this is not one of those times. I am fully warranted in my rant in this matter and I have other objective bystanders that can back me up if need be.


At the boy’s 5th baseball game last night we played a team (The Thunder) that we have played before. We rolled over them in our previous game. Thunder’s coach is bitter because we are the only team to beat them and apparently he isn’t too happy about it. This is confirmed by the League Commissioner to our Coach in a conversation prior to the game. The game was supposed to be 3 inning coach pitch and 3 kid pitch due to a shortage of pitching machines. Thunder’s coach states he’d prefer all kid pitch so our coach agrees. We know they have a couple great pitchers on their team but aren’t too worried.

We get into the game and after a couple innings we realize this won’t be pretty. We are up by a couple runs (2-0) in the 3rd. That’s when I’m not running around to bathrooms with the girls and really start watching the calls and the pitches. The coach for the opposing team stands behind his pitcher and calls the pitches. His strike zone is ALL OVER THE PLACE. In the dirt, at their heads, he’s calling everything strike. Our Coach is calling pretty darn fair and we end up giving up a few runs on walks etc. So they catch up .. The Thunder coaches are yelling the score out while standing next to our kids on the field. Being true jackasses. Going on the field and coaching the kids in the middle of plays, letting the kids take more bases than the rules allow, etc. Our Coach had to say something to them at one point about how they are talking on the field in front of the kids. Our kids are so discouraged by the 5th inning they start swinging at shit pitches over their heads because they are so afraid of getting called out on strikes. A few kids come off in tears for striking out when the ball was in the dirt. And all we can do is pat them on the back and continue to encourage them.

Luckily by the end of the game our kids hung in there and pulled out the win 8-7. But in true jerk form they were yelling that it was a tie in order to keep their kids from feeling bad for losing. What is that teaching them? That isn’t how they learn to play ball the right way. That isn’t what I want my kid to think is right. You don’t push the rules to the side if they don’t suit you. You don’t put others down to build yourself up. You especially don’t do it to children when you are grown Men and you are dealing with 8 year olds.

The whole ordeal was still bothering me this morning so I emailed our coach and aired my concerns and asked if he thought things were a bit iffy. He replied that those particular coaches had already been an issue last year and this year with other teams according to the commissioner (he had already emailed him ) and he agreed that their way of playing the game was not how we want to teach the kids.

So technically I was an angry Mama Bear but it was warranted and it was for all the kids.. not just my own. They played a great game and did it the right way.