Adventures in Little League...

[mikester]

Good grief it's been a long weekend.

My family and I are very much into our community's children's activities.

Cub Scouts, Roller Hockey, AYSO Soccer, Little League, Karate, I'm tired just listing it all out.

This year our youngest didn't quite make the age cut off to be able to play rookie (T-ball). We were disappointed but we understand the rules and that it's the insurance company that drives this age cutoff and the liability insurance the league carries. He misses the cut off by 3 days...

We have been going through this with both of our boys through the years because they both have fall and winter birthdays. The oldest had to do an extra year in day care because he didn't make the cut off for kindergarten. He was bored and we weren't good enough parents to think of putting him into something else to keep him interested.

The younger one has had to sit out a soccer season and now he's sitting out another baseball season. He'll finally get to play soccer next season after the summer break. It's cool, we get it but if we had our way he'd be playing - he's big and ready to play. 3 days though..

So we're at opening day ceremonies yesterday with all the teams. I'm one of the coaches on my older ones team so I'm out there with all the other teams on the main field for the ceremony. My wife is in the stands watching. Early in the day during the parade prep I had noticed one of our friends there who has two sons. One is younger than our youngest and the older is probably around 10 or 11. I figured she was there for the older one.

Well, during the ceremony my wife noticed our friend's younger son sitting there in a uniform on a rookie team. I get a text - 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!'

What is he doing on a team...

I guess before the end of the ceremony she spoke to one of the league organizers about it and they were unaware of the age problem. By then we weren't sure if there was a mistake made by the league or if the boy's parents had lied on the forms. The problem is that its a close nit community - everyone knows everyone else. My son loves this kid and we really do care about him too.

After the ceremony I approached our league representative about it and he assured me that he was getting the facts and the league would determine a proper course of action. He was bummed though as the most likely course of action would be that the boy was removed from the league until he was of the right age. On the flip side though he said if they did decide to keep in the league he would get my son on a team as well.

We weren't trying to be whistle blowers. We just knew that our youngest had been turned away as well as a few of his friends around the same age and we did not understand what was going on. It was upsetting to my wife because we keep having to hold our sons back due to age restrictions when they generally do appear ready to go.

So today we get the word; they pulled him from the team.

My wife feels terrible - responsible and she's worried about the social ramifications because she thinks they will blame us for this. I know that it is certainly plausible too but my own opinion is that if that's how you feel - go right ahead. You're still wrong - but can go right ahead. The rules were clearly spelled out and if you were hoping to get one past the league then you knew the risk. If you didn't read the rules then again - not my fault.

The league representative apologized to my wife - he stood up and took responsibility. He went over to the other family's house in person to talk to them directly about the issue. He didn't use our names though they did want to know who had 'tattled' on them. He told them that it didn't matter because it was an insurance issue and they could not risk their insurance.

I saw the league rep after our own practice today as he was prepping his team and I thanked him for taking the responsibility and saying that it was his fault. It appears that it was something that just slipped by him, he had reviewed all the applicants but this one got by some how and he said 'It's my fault, I'm supposed to catch this.' to us and the other family.

My wife still feels terrible. I feel bad for the kid but I don't really feel that bad. It's the parents fault...we asked before we even filled out an application for him (which we didn't end up doing).

I hate it when crap like this happens...

[chocolatelab]

oh yuck

Nice of the league rep to take the fall.

I would be willing to bet that little secret will come out eventually.

Bummer

[mikester]

Originally Posted by chocolatelab

oh yuck

Nice of the league rep to take the fall.

I would be willing to bet that little secret will come out eventually.

Bummer

I'm not really keeping it a secret myself - I'm sure if it hasn't already it will though.

I think the league rep feels responsible as he had told us - he personally reviewed each applicant and verified everything and his words were 'I missed one.'

[Scott Douglas]

Isn't it funny how some parents will risk the whole shootin' match for every one by doing something like that?
Suppose their kid did play and got hurt while playing and it came out he wasn't of age. Think of the mess that would create, not only for his family but all the others as I'm sure the insurance company would have some strong words with the league about loss of coverage for the rest of the season.
It won't hurt either of the boys to sit out this season, and should make them star performers compared to next year's crop of rookies.

[mikester]

Well, this is a fine mess.

[BRPORSCHE]

???????

[Teutonics]

It amazes me at how much drama is associated with youth sports, and not from the kids!

I coach two travel softball teams, and the parents have been my least favorite part of the entire experience. This year we did player selections based on not only the player's skills, but also attitudes and personalities, as well as parent/family attitudes. It has been refreshing and a very fun year to date (7 months into it). We may not have the best team, but I'm fairly certain we (players, coaches, and families) are having more fun PLAYING THE GAME!

[mikester]

Well, baseball here is the circumstance I suppose...

So it looks like the secret is out. I never really 'kept' it as a secret myself but even when I was talking to the rookie coordinator I never used the kid's name. My wife ran into the mom today and she turned her nose up at her and just grunted at her.

[HardDrive]

Well I can understand your discomfort, but your not in the wrong. Rules are rules. If the other parents are pissy about it, its most likely because they lied and didn't like getting caught in a lie.

I have a daughter, 9. Its seems there is always some sort of petite social land mine waiting around the corner. Recently, one of her classmates stole her band sheet music, because she had lost her own. The mother of the kid is a bigwig amongst the parents.....aw geez.....

[Hydrocket]

I lost respect for Little League a long time ago when they switched the format so an American team was guaranteed to be in the Little League World Series....

[mikester]

World Series? Little League? All I care about it is making it through my weekend games...It'll be FANTASTIC when both boys are on a team. I am enjoying coaching though. My oldest and I are closer than we have ever been and it's f'ing fantastic.

[Tobra]

It is the parent's fault, 100% and there is no way it is by mistake. The woman who acted like that to your wife is a POS, I pity her children.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

Decades ago I coached youth sports. I loved working with the kids. HATED the parents! Well, some of them. In soccer the parents had no idea what was going on so I had a free reign. Man, in other sports the parents WERE THE problems!!!

I coached young kids, under 12. My goal was to teach the kids the basics and get their skill sets up. Kids who tried got to play, everyone played at least 1/2 of the game! That would upset some parents! Heck, in years of coaching I only came in second place once, and that was my first team. Last year I coached our team was never even scored on! Only one shot on goal.... Guess I did not know what I was doing.

[tharbert]

I've pushed out the other end of all this. My youngest is now 20. I coached and supported anything they wanted. Their main sport was baseball.

In the end, I think you'll find your boy being one of the "older" kids in the group is a good thing. He will be at the top or over the hump of the standard bell curve of capabilities and growth. In short, kids that sit out will be STUDS the next year.

My kid would drag me out to the yard every day. I hit grounders at him, played pitch/catch, hit fly balls by the hundreds. In the end, he had, by far the best arm and skills. Where I fell down was batting. We tried but I just didn't know enough about it. So, my suggestion? If they like baseball, in addition to practicing with you, get them a hitting coach of some sort or a batting cage.

All the drama will sort itself out.

[mikester]

Originally Posted by Tobra

It is the parent's fault, 100% and there is no way it is by mistake. The woman who acted like that to your wife is a POS, I pity her children.

I do agree with this. In talking to the wife last night about it she was upset with how the mom treated her. She's upset with the situation but doesn't feel responsible.

what she feels really bad about though is the boy's feelings. He's 4, he doesn't know one way or the other why he got pulled from the team all he knows is that he can't play and he really wanted to. We both feel terrible about that but again - it is his parent's and the league's fault. We sympathize with him I guess. I tried putting myself in their shoes - if this had happened with us - to my son would I be upset with them. I'd like to think I wouldn't be but generally speaking I am an honest guy. I'm a Boy Scout through and through.

This is where I'm stuck. I think we should go talk to these folks and just give them our side of the story so that they have it at least. Even if they still want to blame us -that's fine. I really don't care because if that is what they want to do then at that point I know where we stand. They were borderline friends vs acquaintances before and they had strikes against them already - this puts it over the top though.

[mikester]

So the other day last week I'm taking my #2 to day care in the morning - I think it was Monday and as I'm walking in with him the other kid's Dad is walking out.

Usually this is standard operating procedure. We see each other all the time and I'm supposed to say good morning, we shake hands and talk for a few minutes. This time he kind of grunts, doesn't make eye contact and walks on by. Then as he's past he turns and starts in on me.

'You know what you guys did was pretty crappy and really hurt us.' and stuff like that.

So I say 'whoa man, what we did? All we did was try to get our #2 on a team. We didn't mean for anything like what happened to happen and we feel pretty terrible about what did happen.'

And then he's like 'Well, it's great for you! Your boys are still on teams!'

Wait...did he say boys?

'Dude - boys? #2's not playing man, he misses the cutoff by 72 hours.'

'What?!'

'Yep.'

By then we're face to face and he's clearly thrown - I'm not sure why he thought my #2 was on a team but clearly that was really messing them up. So finally he says to my son - Well, don't worry kid - both you guys will get them next year.

I did actually apologize to him as I am sorry that his kid got caught up in all this, we shook hands, he accepted my apology. I was kind of a little shakey in the voice because I do hate that his son's pretty upset about it and so he asks me if I'm sick or something. I say 'no man, I'm upset that all this went down the way it did. I feel terrible about it and my wife feels terrible about it. We're friends and we would never intentionally do anything to hurt you guys or your son - he's damn near my son's best friend and that would be stupid. Let me reiterate - my wife is a mess over this man.'

He says, 'Yeah, it sucks - I'll talk to my wife.' Then he goes on and on about the age discrimination and what not...

My wife was glad that it was handled the way it was but personally I just wish I had done something sooner instead of letting it lie. I'm not the kind of guy to let stuff sit there like this but they can get a little hot at times and if I had showed up at the door to talk to them about it I'm not 100% sure I would have been safe.

My wife's okay with things now but I'm a little off on the fact that they thought we would do something to hurt them or their kid. Bums me out that someone who knows me a bit would think that. I'm worried I might appear to be the person I think I am.

[biosurfer1]

I think you handled it well. Situation sucks all the way around but once next year arrives and the boys are playing, it won't matter.

One of my best friends growing up missed the cutoff by 1 day. I don't remember playing without him (since we were 6 at the time) but I do remember that he got to play 1 extra year because and dominated the league because of it.

BTW, none of this is stopping you and the other dad from taking the boys out on your own and getting them ready for next year. I remember practicing with my dad much better than any t-ball practice.

[mikester]

So, I did come to find out that it wasn't actually us who were the culprits to bring up the younger boy playing. It was another mom who had a kid in 'A' and wanted him to move up to "AA" with his older brother. The younger is in Kindergarden I think, the older is in 3rd grade. They are both VERY good - they eat, drink and sleep baseball. VERY GOOD.

SCARY GOOD.

She's the one who called her buddy the Rookie Player Rep and made the stink before my wife even found out about it and made hers.

Man this season is full of crap. If my son wasn't having such a good time and if he and I didn't get along so well through baseball...well I guess that's why I do it mostly. Another reason is that I really do enjoy hanging out with some of the dads and I really do enjoy working with the boys and helping them.

Playoffs start this week and they are telling us that a game MUST go no less than 4 innings and that the goal is 6 innings or 2.5 hours. Normally we go about that long but rarely get to 5 innings. We aren't supposed to start new innings after 2 hours of play. So now we've got 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders playing from 4:30-8pm. We start the games at 5 with warm up at 4:30. Tonight was the first playoff game and it went until almost 8 for some reason and they did not get to 6 innings. My understanding is that they plan to pick the game up tomorrow some how and continue it until it's done.

Someone's taking little league way too seriously and draining the fun out.

Is it always going to be like this? Is there a league out there that actually focuses on the boys and not the dad's stroking their egos?

[JavaBrewer]

Originally Posted by mikester

Someone's taking little league way too seriously and draining the fun out.

Is it always going to be like this? Is there a league out there that actually focuses on the boys and not the dad's stroking their egos?

No...it's going to get more intense as the boys age. We thought that once Zack (our son) reached high school the silly parent politics would be gone...haha how naive. If your kids don't LOVE, and I mean LOVE, baseball then take the opportunity to walk away now and save everyone the grief. Lots of other great activities to pursue.

[nostatic]

I'm glad Calvin bailed halfway through his first season of t-ball. It wasn't so crazy when I was a kid...