Crazy Parents of Youth Sports Series
Two years ago, my son was playing in a youth baseball tournament in Harrison, Ohio. The tournament was played at a complex that caters to both youth leagues and adult softball leagues. As such, the complex has a license to sell beer at the concession stand. In fact, they sell a belly buster beer in a plastic cup that is bigger than the head of the person drinking it.
The second game of a doubleheader pitted my son's team against a team from a small town in Indiana. The Indiana team was sponsored by their local tavern. The name of the tavern was proudly emblazoned across the uniforms of each innocent 10 year old player. I am not sure what the nickname of the team actually was, but lets call them the Little Shots and their fans the Beer Chasers.
The Beer Chasers were particularly fond of the $4 belly buster beers. After a quite a few beers, one rather loud mom became frustrated with her son Johnny's (not his real name) performance. Poor Johnny was completely over matched by our pitcher. He had already stuck out on three pitches once in the second inning and faced the same pitcher again in the fifth. Johnny ended up striking out on 3 pitches again and his bat never left his shoulder.
As Johnny walked back to the dugout with his head low, his mom yells out to him for all to hear, "Hey Johnny, swing the bat, swing the bat, swing the bat. Do something, for God's sake...... You're just like your daddy he never did nothing either. Ahh yeah but you wouldn't know that because you don't even know your good for nothing dead beat dad." I could not believe my ears.
Another Beer Chaser, Shots fan, mom, apparently told Johnny's mom to shut her pie hole. In the instant following the comment, Johnny's mom charged the other mom knocking a 3 year old off the bleachers in the process. (The three year old was not injured)
The two moms met at the fence near home plate. Johnny's mom was throwing punches and pulling hair. The other mom responded with some haymakers of her own and pulled the top off of Johnny's mom. While this was going on, Johnny's mom's new man sat on the top row of the bleachers calmly sipping his beer. Actually none of the Beer Chaser dads jumped in to stop the fracas.
The umpire stopped the game during the fight and the players from both teams watched with eyes wide open.
The fight ended before security or the police could arrive. After the cat fight, Johnny's bloodied and intoxicated mom walked into the dugout, pulled her son out of the game, left the park and jumped into into her late model Ford with her son and two other young kids. Her man was not happy. Not happy at all. No happy because he had not finished his beer yet and he was not allowed to take his beer out of the park.
The Main Point
Youth Baseball teams should not be sponsored by a Tavern. Many NCAA venues do not allow alcohol at games. This should be a law for youth sports venues too.
A dad blog that covers the drama, comedy and competition of youth sports in America.
I really hope that you are not teaching your kids to be as bigoted as you are. The intolerance that is shown in this story prompted me to write a paper for my Intolerance in America class at Vassar.
ReplyDeleteI can not believe that you would push such a classist paradigm; all of the while comparing your wasp bourgeois "winner" type family with that of "Johnnys" working class single parent "loser" family that you so obviously despise.
I personally think that the next time you make up a story to post, that showing tolerance and respecting class and social differences should be a priority. If you fail to do so your children will grow up to be bigoted, inpolitical correct, classists.
Dear Vassar Student.
ReplyDeleteVassar is a great school for intelligent people, so I am somewhat surprised by your comments and your choice of inspiration for your paper. Despite the venom of your comment, I am going to help you. I am going to help you avoid getting a low grade on your paper.
Although I hold conservative views, I too went to an ultra liberal school (Columbia) and know what liberal teachers want. I can tell you that what you perceive as my intolerance will not pass muster with your professor.
You see, there’s so much real and painful intolerance in this world. Everyday, men in some cultures are subjugating women, people of one color are marginalizing people of another color, there are people who hate and even hurt others because of their sexual bent or religious affiliation. These are the intolerances that your liberal teacher is looking for, yet you single out a dad in middle America who recounted a story about a fight at a little league game, fight that was neither motivated by race, nor class, nor sexual orientation. The story was about the ugliness motivated by alcohol at a little league game.
I will admit that I am intolerant of people who drink to excess in front of little league kids and then drive them home. If this story makes me intolerant then your paper is going to make you a student who’s going to need a 5th year to graduate.
I also think that you should rethink your paper on the grounds that your professor is also going to question your hypocritical point of view.
You call me a bigot at the same time you call me a WASP.
I’m assuming that you know what a WASP is, but just in case, I will educate you. WASP is term that refers to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants in a disparaging manner.
I hate to inform you of this, but I am sure your profession would want to know that you have the facts correct, but I am neither Protestant nor Anglo-Saxon.
By calling me a WASP, you assume that I am from a closed group of white, high-status Americans of British descent with a Protestant background who supposedly wield disproportionate financial and social power. Right? That’s your POV?
The one part you got right is that I am white. A quick look at the pictures of my kids and me would confirm that. Your teacher may give you some partial credit for your keen sense of observation. I assume that you made the distinction of my color being white because you think Johnny and his mom are not for some reason. There is nothing in the post that even remotely suggests the color of the skin of the player or the family.
Another word of caution, your teacher is going to ridicule you for bringing in your stereotyped views to play the race card.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you did not mean to make this a racial issue by the poor use of the term WASP. So let’s concentrate on the social class argument that you are trying to make.
Nowhere in the post do I refer to the people in this story as poor, unemployed, unwashed, low class or any other term that would characterize a low socio-economic status. In fact, there is nothing in the post that would suggest that our team is from a high economic status. I didn’t mention either because it was not pertinent to the story about alcohol sales at a little league game.
Your professor is also is going to wonder why you think that this is a class issue.
There is lot of things that have been generated with in the course of time and is effective.
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