OT: Pathetic Parents Throwing Hands at a Little League Game

Unfortunately, I can relate to this, only with hockey parents instead of baseball.  Never really had any issues at baseball that I can recall.  But over the 15+ years I played competitive hockey, I can think back to multiple parent fights/brawls, parents yelling just awful things at pre teen/teen players, parents using mirrors and laser pointers to try and blind players, parents throwing objects at players/other parents, parents fighting coaches, etc.

Two incidents stand out to me.  Both took place when I was only 12, back in the wayback of 1991.  The first, we were playing in some freezing cold small town Saskatchewan barn.  My younger step brother got called for a penalty.  The boxes in this rink were on the opposite side from the benches and didn't have anything separating them from the stands.  Some dad from the other team is standing right beside the box.  Guy had to be in his 40's or 50's.  He started calling an 11 year old every name you can think of, calling him a little cocksucker, a little piece of shit, fucking little faggot, etc.  I started skating over when my dad yells out for me to stop right there. I looked over and he's running around from our bench area toward the penalty box.  My head coached yelled out "stop him!!  He's going to kill that guy!!"  But my dad just placed himself between the penalty box and the asshole for the rest of the game.  Made sure the guy knew he was there, but never said a word to him.  The guy never said a word after that either. 

The other one is a bit shorter.  Finals of a tournament.  One of the mothers has a mirror she's trying to shine directly in my eyes any chance she gets.  I had a couple goals and after laying a pretty decent hit on a guy, she started losing her mind swearing at me, every name in the book.  Then I heard her yell at her kid to "take me out."  The next time down the ice, I get elbowed in the head into the end glass.  I went down for a second and ended up getting helped off (I was back like 2 minutes later.  Remember this was the early 90's when you just "got your bell rung).  What I'll always remember is her cheering wildly as I was getting helped off and screaming "how do you like that, asshole?"  Over and over.  Again, I was 12.

I’m here for the fuckery

Just as bad are the parents who think the officials have vendettas out against your team just baffles me. 

The fact that so many people think the high school umpire who is working for 20 dollars a game on a weeknight goes into it saying “I can’t wait to screw over the Tigers as they play the Bulls. Man I hate the pitcher on the Tigers. His 8 year old smug pisses me off”

Coached a lot of youth ball back in the day, first for my little brother’s teams, then later for my son’s. One of my proudest moments as a coach was when my co-coach and I kicked one of our kid’s dad out. He was hassling the teenage ump, and also abusively yelling at his own son for striking out. We stopped the game and, with the ump and the other team’s coaches, walked over to the stands and told the asshole that the game would not resume until he was in the distant parking lot, and he could either take his son with him or let him play. Under the glares of two dozen other parents who came to watch their boys have some summer fun, he left. 

I’ve got a buddy who’s coached 7th & 8th grade boys & girls basketball and 7th & 8th grade boys baseball at a small parochial school here in West Mich. After several years, he’s quit. Why? Because of the parents. It’s crazy. 

Very sad because he loves kids, loves coaching and is very knowledgeable.  

What a bunch of dorks. 

When my son reached the age that I no longer had time or wished to be a team coach anymore I would watch games from deep in the right or left field fence just to be away from the parents.  As a former coach I knew what most of the kids were capable of and what was out of their reach.

His 1st game after changing schools was in a JV tournament.  The parents, not liking the outcome and calls of one game, were hurling profanity at the umps.  It confirmed to me that the parents we used to play against, but were now teammates with, were trash.

I'm sure they thought I was stuck-up but I didn't care.  I watched from the outfield and worked with my son one-on-one while keeping my opinions to myself.

SMH.  Nothing much to add.  Except throw the morons in jail.  Or let each kid whack em in the nuts with an aluminum bat like a pinata...

Yeah... so after this thread, I never want to ever hear another word from putative adults my age about how kids today are emotionally fragile snowflakes because of participation trophies.

Sad, And as an ex umpire i saw this stuff first hand.

I've seen similar shit happen at youth hockey games.   in fact a travel hockey coach was suspended for 5 games for throwing a water bottle at an official (a teenage official) as he was skating away.  

The organization didn't punish the coach at all, just the USA Hockey 5 game suspension.  

The jackass wanted my son to play for his travel team, we weren't interested.

These parents are so in the stone age. My kid's on a robotics team.

In multiple ways, a microcosm of the times we live in:

1) If someone does or says something that you disagree with, there really is no more sense of compromise and "live and let live." It's more "do or say what I do, think what I think, its my way or the highway, or if not, you're a worthless idiot who doesn't belong here anyway." People bicker and fight with each other now over the most petty, insignificant things. 

2) Parents sheltering their kids and propping them up to make them think they're better than they are, and teaching them that when something goes wrong, its someone else's fault. My wife's a teacher, and she comes home with stories of this all the time about her student's parents. Parents who call her or stop by her classroom after hours to try and make up all these external excuses for why their child didn't turn in their homework, didn't do well on a quiz or test, why they're failing the class. Always blaming someone else for their child's failures, because the parent can't possibly envision a world where their precious angel isn't perfect at everything. They never stop and think about the possibility that their child is the problem. That they may just be lazy and not care about putting in the work. And they're especially not thinking about themselves being the problem. 

Saw it all too often growing up, with plenty of parents trying to be their kid's friend. You love your children and give them every opportunity to succeed, but until they are graduated and have made something of themselves on their own, they should never be your friend. 

End soapbox rant.