Friday, June 28, 2013

Taking fair play and respect out of the game

(Warning: This blog post uses explicit language. Reader discretion is advised.)

I've heard of crazy hockey parents. Those are the people who lose control of any rational thoughts while in a hockey arena watching a game and they scream obscenities at the referees. It changes nothing but makes everyone around them uncomfortable.

My guess is these crazy hockey parents also frequent lacrosse, soccer and baseball games in the summer. I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting any of these parents until Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. I hope I never meet them again. Let me explain...

Tuesday night I was coaching the Pee Wee Pirates down at Lakeview Park. We were playing the Giants and it was a close game. The Pirates held a narrow lead heading into the fifth inning when the Giants coach got into a dust-up with the umpire about a game ball. I didn't hear what was said from my dugout but it must have been nasty because the coach got ejected. Off he goes to the parking lot and his assistant steps in.

Two pitches later the assistant starts encouraging his players to scream at our pitcher while he's in his windup. The base umpire gives him a warning it's against the rules and he's to control his team. He argues his players are only cheering. The next pitch his players continue what their coach was encouraging them to do and the umpire stops the game. The two go nose-to-nose and before you know it the assistant coach gets ejected from the game. At this point the fans are getting lippy so the plate umpire asks the one remaining Giants coach and myself to get control of our fans or else the game will be called.

I saw three guys sitting on our side of the field and they were yelling a lot of obscenities at the umpire so I went up to them and asked them to cut it out or else the umpire would call the game.

The guy with the biggest mouth turns to me and says, "Why don't you shut up you four-eyed little faggot before I come over there and beat the shit out of you." He stands up and with him is a giant rottweiler dog. I shrugged my shoulders, turned around and walked back to the dugout. Obviously this meat head was not one of our fans.

As I'm standing there waiting for the game to re-start this guy walks up behind me on the other side of the fence and starts making baby sounds trying to get under my skin. A parent of one of our kids says, "Buddy just go sit down."

"You going to fucking make me. I'll lay you out too," meat head says.

He stood there waiting to be challenged but we didn't engage him so he and his dog went back to their place in the stands. I fully expected him to wait for me after the game but he sauntered off with his kids and only glared at me as I walked back to my car.

That was my first experience with a nut-job. The next night I was at my daughter's soccer game with my parents watching Connaught play Glen Stewart. No referee showed up so a parent familiar with the rules of the game volunteered to officiate.

Everything was going fine until about the three-quarter mark of the game when two players got into an altercation. The referee told both girls to head to the sidelines to cool off. They weren't being ejected from the game, they were just being given time to compose themselves.

This big lug of a father on my right starts dropping f-bombs at the poor parent/referee telling him to pull his "head out of his ass" because it was the Glen Stewart player who was in the wrong. A Glen Stewart father to my left yells at the guy to shut his mouth and let the kids play. The big lug stands up and says, "You want to fucking go?" A woman yells at him to sit down and to that he replies, "I'll take you on too lady."

I hadn't heard anybody challenge somebody else to a fight since I was a teenager. That's what happens with teenagers because they're young and stupid and figure disputes can be settled by beating one another up. It's not how the real world works but don't try telling those nut-job sports fans I met. Apparently they felt beating the snot out of me or another parent would solve the disputes on the field. Unbelievable.

Clowns like those two should be banned from viewing any kids sporting events. I don't care if their kids are on the teams, they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the playing fields. Threatening physical violence and bullying coaches teaches EVERYONE the exact opposite of what is supposed to be encouraged on house league sporting fields -- respect and sportsmanship.

What happened this week was a poor display by a few parents that left a bad impression with a lot of kids. And that's wrong.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Enjoying time in our field of dreams

Last winter my son Tavish said he wanted to play baseball this summer. He's played softball for four years but with all the hype about the Toronto Blue Jays and the fact he participated in a baseball camp last year convinced him baseball was the way to go.

I warned him I didn't know how to coach baseball. My game has always been softball. Tav didn't care. He wanted to switch and so I told him I'd help out the coach as much as I could.

I pictured a carefree summer where all I had to do was drop my son off at the ball diamond and help the coach out if he or she needed it. No lineups, no practice planning, no scorekeeping, no dealing with vacations, call ups or arguing with umpires. It was going to be the summer of Ian!

Why not coach? Well I told myself I wanted to get to know Baseball Oshawa, I wanted to see how the league ran, I wanted to see how different it was to coach baseball. I grew up playing softball but I never played baseball as a kid and I certainly had never coached the game. Would it be radically different? No. But I wanted to test the waters, dip my toe in to see how cold it was if you know what I mean.

Then I got the call. The league needed coaches or the kids wouldn't be able to play. So much for the summer of Ian!

But as it turns out taking the coaching plunge with Baseball Oshawa hasn't been the worst thing to happen to me. The field dimensions may be different but the game is as fun to coach as softball. I told my team (The Pee Wee Pirates) at our first practice I wanted to accomplish one thing this summer, to have fun. If we won a few games that would be great but even if we didn't we'd learn a lot (them and me) and we'd get to spend some time together out in our field of dreams.

One of my players was sitting with me on the bench the other night and he said he played for another coach last season and all that coach did was yell.

"It didn't make me want to play that hard for him, you know?" he said. "But you don't yell, you make it fun. You're a good coach."

Hearing that from one of my players was a better feeling for me than winning a championship. And given we've only recorded one victory this season a championship is a long ways off! Don't get me wrong, I'd love to win a few more games but there's more to baseball than wins and losses. Together we're building character, we're learning teamwork and we've developed new friendships. It's a great game and I've got some great kids.

This has turned out to be the summer of Ian after all!