Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Dad's Behaving Badly


Earth Day 2007: The weather was perfect, not a cloud in sight the temperature is just right. It was a perfect for watching my cousin Pico play little league baseball.

My cousin’s team is new to the league made up of 7-12 year olds 75 % of the team have never played baseball before and the coach is a newbie too so they are all learning as they go along. The team they played is old school one of the best teams in the league. Our inexperienced team didn’t stand a chance in the face of their seasoned players but hey it’s not about winning the game it’s about having fun being a part of something etc. At least that’s the way our family sees it. Try telling that to the family sitting in the bleachers behind me there to cheer a kid on the opposing team.

As much as I admired them for being there for the kid I couldn’t help but think that they were there to annoy the crap out of me. Their constant razzing and criticizing of Pico’s team was plucking my last nerve. Trust me you don’t want to be around me when the last nerve has been plucked it’s not a pretty thing.

Yeah I understand your kids team is slaughtering my cousin’s team. Yeah I can see it’s 11-0 ! Pero excuse me putos I don’t need you doing a merengue up in the stands every time a runner makes it home. I definitely don’t need to hear you trash talking the adorable 7 yr old girl guarding 3rd base. Try that crap with my cousin I assure you a search and rescue squad will be needed to remove my size 5 sneaker outta your butt.

At one point I turned around to stare down the father of the kid who was the most vocal of the lot. I told him to chill; no one’s immigration status was dependent on the outcome of this game. I reminded him that they were only kids and that as far as I knew The Yankees didn’t have anyone scouting the game. The man stared at me and said nothing.

The boy’s uncle a teacher at the local high school kept telling his brother-in-law pretty to chill out as well he’d been cheering on both teams and reminding his brother-in-law that this was the opposing team’s first game. In all fairness that particular father wasn’t the only dad behaving badly. One of my cousin’s team mates had his father in the stands as well and all he did was constantly berate his kids performance. If it had been me I would’ve thrown a wild pitch and made sure it connected with the man’s head. Good grief the dude was annoying.



At the end of the slaughter game. The kid whose team had won came into the stands. He hadn’t even reached his father yet when the man immediately started pointing out his errors and offering coaching tips. The kid stopped in his tracks turned around and walked away. Then the father spotted the coach of the losing team and began dispensing his pearls of wisdom,

“In Santo Domingo,” he went on in Spanish, “we take the kids and make them live and breathe baseball. That’s what they have to do here if they want these kids to be any good. Every day as soon as school is over make them practice for a couple of hours. They have to learn that base ball is everything and that they have to sacrifice in order to be good at the game.”

The boy’s uncle waited patiently for his brother -in -law to finish his riff and then he said, “Look man this is the United States of America. In this country we like to let our kids enjoy their childhood. We don’t fuck up their lives until they are teenagers at least.” I looked at both men and just burst out laughing.

Labels: a day in the life, baseball

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