A few weeks ago the sun was shining and I had the pleasure of watching my oldest son play in a baseball game. Everywhere I looked I saw smiles and laughter. As the sold out crowd settled in (ok maybe about 35 parents) the umpire yelled, “Let’s play ball!” Let me say this is the second year of kid pitch. To give you a sense of a game, my son’s team scored 10 runs on 3 hits the week prior. Funny my son was 1-1 with 2 walks and 5 steals. Ok, back to the game.
As the game began I noticed the other manager was really, really intense and almost screaming at the kids. After every pitch he would yell to the batter, “Reload! Reload!” which means the batter had to step out of the batter’s box and wait for a signal. I understand signals but at 10 years old? There is no one on base and you are giving signals? Really? I have been playing ball for over 40 years and the only strategy to me when you are the first batter in a game is wait for a strike and hit the ball. Ok I will get past the reload and all of that stuff.
During the game we had lots of interesting stuff like catcher interference and a few balks, which guess who was involved in that? Mr. Reload Coach. All that is fine (I guess) until an interaction in one of the late innings.
Our coach said to Reload Coach who was on the third baseline, “You are in the baseline and in the way of our player who is getting ready to throw the ball and you almost got hit.”
Instead of saying, “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, I didn’t realize,” he said, “Well there aren’t any coaching boxes.”
I am sorry but that is no way to teach kids. The art of baseball is not to circumvent the rules. He is right in that there weren’t any coaching boxes but since he has coached for 15 years (just a guess) and studies the rule book before he goes to sleep he know where they are and what to do.
This same coach questioned a number of other things during the game. I give him credit for giving his time but I do believe you need to do it the right way.
What are your thoughts?
- Have your kids had some challenging coaches?
- Do you think some coaches take it too far?
- What are your thoughts regarding what happened in my son’s game?
I look forward to your comments.
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Money, Money, Money
October 21st, 2011I never thought that was odd but she did. As I started to look around, the next person who paid had her money jammed into her wallet folded lots of different ways. This really got me to think –is the way that I do it the norm? I assumed it was but perhaps not? Also, this got me to think about how we really don’t use cash for much anymore – I wonder how much money my friends and industry contacts typically have in their wallet?
So I ask you:
I really look forward to hearing your thoughts.
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