Since I’m not writing about running here anymore all I have to write about are my kids. So now I’m a mommybot blogger or some shit. Lovely. I am what I despise. Just call me Sweetney.
Anyway, yesterday was my son’s first little league baseball game. I have to say that baseball is A LOT different from football. In football, the kids practice 2+ hours a day 4 days a week for a month before the season starts. In baseball, the kids practiced for about an hour a couple times a week for two weeks before the season started. It is WAY more laid back than football. I get that football is a much more demanding — and dangerous — sport than baseball when you’re 8 years old, but damn. I have no idea how the coaches could evaluate and prepare kids for the season after 4 hours of “spring training.” But that’s neither here nor there.
Back to yesterday. What a fucking nut cluster. Again, way different than football, which is played and refereed just like a high school game. I couldn’t get a straight answer on what the rules even were for the game. They were either going to play 4, 5, 6, or 7 innings or they were going to play for time. Each batter got 3, 4, or 5 strikes and teams switched sides when either 5 runs were scored, 3 outs were recorded, or the side batted around twice. I think. I have no idea what the score was or who won. There were no umpires eithers. The coaches (and supplemental parents) made all the calls in the field.
In the end, the boy batted 2nd and went 3 for 4, played center field and catcher (which he really liked), and acted like a leader in the field. But when he asked the final score no one really knew, but one of the coaches said that he thinks their team lost. I also don’t know how many innings were played because I wasn’t counting on my own. I just know the game lasted about an hour and a half.
The weirdest thing about the game was that a coach told me afterwards that my kid is a natural athlete. This is the klutzy kid who can’t sit on the floor without falling down.
So I guess I know now that these coaches are totally clueless about the kids’ abilities.
When they’re just little and in the “pee wees”, it’s not such a bad thing that the rules aren’t really enforced. It’s a good time for the kids to learn how to bat, field and throw the ball. The kids certainly don’t care about how many innings were played. They just want to know how many times they hit the ball and how far they hit it. It’s a different story though when they get to be 13 or 14 years old. Our oldest daughter is still scratching her head and wondering why kids her age are still getting “special treatment”…she’s only 1 year away from playing high school ball and I’m not sure any of the kids her age really even know the real rules of the game. It seems the “rules” change every year. I’d say they nurture these kids a little too long.
I wish they would make the kids compete for real! All this “let’s play nice stuff” is kinda crappy. How are they going to learn how to cry when they lose and boast big time when they win? Crazy!!!
And some of us klutzy people can actually be great athletes… or dancers….
Well, someone does keep score, but these kids are in a less-competitive division by design based on age and experience. Next year if he chooses to play, the boy will be in a division that does track wins and losses. In fact, next year he’ll have to go through a skills evaluation and a draft before he even knows what team he’s on.