the wrath of mom

not my mom, mind you...
(tales of the ballpark)

so far, i have been pretty lucky. 3 years as a head baseball coach (coachin' for my son drew) and not any major parental issues. but now, we're getting there. i am not, by the way, drew's all-star coach. but i soon may be. but that, and the issues keeping an actual coach from coming to more than one practice AND ACTUALLY KNOWING WHAT HE IS DOING are another topic altogether.

there's this kid, and he has parents, of course, and an aunt. and these guardians of his life are convinced, like many other parents, that their kid is baseball Jesus. (i have tried to maintain balance in my situation, not proclaiming drew the savior of the game while also realizing he may be. but i digress.) but this mom (and aunt) have wreaked havoc for 4 years or so by trying to make sure that their son (ands nephew) is viewed as the greatest since griffey to swing a bat, and that he plays 3rd. (why 3rd? if i was trying to get my kid in the infield, it would definitely be shortstop). the thing is, he is not any of these things. i submit that no 8 year old is. he is a pretty decent hitter, a not-good fielder, and slow. that adds up to exactly one tool. which he is still learning to handle. which is fine for a 7 year old. he doesn't have to be baseball Jesus.

anyway, over the weekend, it reared its head. first of all, the aforementioned coach actually let mom and aunt make the lineup for a game we played. a lineup, incidentally, which had the kid at 3rd and batting lead-off. and a game which, incidentally, we lost 22-0. ugly. for the next game, the coach wasn't there, and so i made the lineup and order was restored. we played better, still lost. but i got some nasty looks and comments and the aunt spent most of the game bad-mouthing me to her confidants. (secretly, i was pleased to have pissed her off) and since we are currently at the beach, missing a practice, it will be fun to see what happens when we get back. i'll keep you posted.

i guess if i were to try to extract a moral from this story, which i tend to do, it would be this: even if your kid isn't baseball Jesus, it is ok. you can still be proud of him. because he doesn't seem to care where he plays. and you shouldn't sabatoge a team just so the kid can play the hot corner.

so shut up.