“Don’t forget they’re kids” a father yelled at a recent Little League baseball tournament. He sounded like my father because I remember him saying the same thing to my coach when I was around 11 years old and riding the bench. Today, I received a picture of a sign that stands proudly on a fence of a Little League ball park. It makes you think.
It was followed up with a note from my friend Beth that read
“Sometimes I feel bad when I think 'drop it' when our kid put the ball in
play.” I get that, but in reality, when we see the humiliation our kids go through brought on
by coaches that think the kids are winning the trophy for them… well, I believe that’s worse than "rooting in your head." Rooting in your head isn't nearly as bad. Don’t follow? Here me out…
We have always thought in our heads, “Catch it” when
our team is ready to make that big play in the field, be it the Yankees, or
your son’s Little League team. We’ve
thought “Drop it” in that same instance, especially if it’s possible to tack on
another run. To me, that’s baseball, and
as long as there is no bad sportsmanship going on…. Well, that’s the game, that's what you do...you root.
What’s NOT the game is when a 9 year old rides the
pine for 5 innings just to play the outfield in the 6th. What’s NOT the game is telling a kid in the
field that he’s gonna “get yanked out if he doesn’t learn to throw harder!”
True story by the way. I heard it with my own ears from a rival town team's coach.
The point is there’s a big difference. The
coach who volunteers their time is volunteering because he wants to be a
teacher, a mentor. That same volunteer has no more rights to “win at all costs”
for a group of 10 year old little leaguers than the parents do.
Why? Because the coach is the vehicle. The kids, the kids make that
club, especially in Little League. The kids mold that club and it’s
the kids that work.
Don’t read this and think I’m clueless. I am a coach,
I practice what I preach and I’ve witnessed plenty of stupid antics from rival coaches that end up
in our favor. Why you ask? Because we
play the game right. I have observed enough
to formulate a perfect technique for coaching… it’s about the kids and it
always was.
My son played for the most dynamic coach he had ever
had recently. It wasn’t great, it was
grand. There was good sportsmanship and a team made up of kids that knew the
game, yet barely knew each other. In the
end, I had never seen such an outpouring of support, intergrity, courage and
sportsmanship in my life. And guess what, it
started with the coach who set the tone. “No Bull. You know your role, you know
the game and you know what good sportsmanship is… now go out and win… success
is earned. “
Little League is a building block, and as the sign above
says… these are kids, not adults. They're sponges. Let them absorb the good of this great game…
don’t take them down the dark road of bad sportsmanship, the pressures of
failure and defeat. Sure, you need to
learn to lose before you can ever learn to win. It’s my feeling that if you
feel the sting of loss 1 time, you never want to feel it again and you try harder the next time around. Sure, it’s the hardest thing to do and the easiest
thing to say, but it’s true. We try to
enforce that in my house, maybe you do in yours, but with all the posts we've done on
Little League here about the disappoint of “Daddy baseball”, it's clear, those coaches have forgetten about what’s
really important and who they’re teaching.
Yeah I know, this is a Yankee fan site, but there’s
always room for a life lesson… that’s what BYB does.
Think about it the next time you're at the baseball field with your kid and someone from across the way yells, “That kid sucks, strike him out!” Remember, he’s not Albert Pujols, he’s Tommy from Orchard Street… have we forgotten? Sure, we’re human, thinking it might be a different story… but saying it? Keep that to yourself.
Think about it the next time you're at the baseball field with your kid and someone from across the way yells, “That kid sucks, strike him out!” Remember, he’s not Albert Pujols, he’s Tommy from Orchard Street… have we forgotten? Sure, we’re human, thinking it might be a different story… but saying it? Keep that to yourself.
Anyway, I’m ranting now, sorry about that.
You can read more about our Little League “Daddy Baseball” series below. We’re getting some pretty interesting stories
and we’ll try and bring them to you as we roll along at Bleeding Yankee Blue. Thanks for reading us!
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