Plaaay Ball!

I want to start this post by saying that Jeff's son, Corbin, is a phenomenal player. I would not spend extra time watching other kid's games but for the fact that he literally rocks! I see a major leaguer there for sure if Corbin wants it.

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 Today I was amazed at the craziness that goes on at little league baseball. Zach plays baseball, and I have gotten to know all of the parents for the players on his team. They all seem like normal people until their children walk onto the field. I try not to put pressure on Zach, realizing baseball is first and foremost a game. Still, most of the time, all of the parents for our team get along. Today I went to watch Jeff's son play an All-Star game - what a difference.

The parents of those kids on the All-Star team were vicious and pretentious, with one another. One group stood behind the bleachers, a family I guess, and talked the whole time, hardly looking at the game (pretenders). Then there were the ones who wore similar shirts that one of the moms made (joiners), those with matching shirts they had made because the other made shirts did not fit (Abercrombies) and then the ones who were too good for matching shirts (hypocrites). The hypocrites scoffed at the Abercrombies who cast aspersions at the pretenders who then castigated the joiners who bemoaned the hypocrites.

I watched all the crazy interaction during the switch from one team to another from inning to inning. It was all silliness. It's a game for gosh sakes. Kids playing a game and wanting parents to be interested in them playing the game. One Dad actually moved away from his wife so that he could concentrate on his boy instead of all the chatter. Zach and I even moved down to get away from the complaining.

I am new to little league baseball. It may be that the sport makes people a little nuts. It may be that I don't know much about parenting as I just started and did not have to do it from scratch. Maybe if I had a few years of already watching a hundred games then just showing up for appearances sake would seem normal to me. But I doubt it, knowing who I am, and why I do attend the games now. I want to be supportive. I want to be the type of parent who can recount every great-pop-fly-to-second-catch. I want to be able to say that my kid has struck out only twice, walked 7 times, had 8 RBIs and so on at the end of the season.

I don't know. The whole experience messed with my mojo. I want people to be real.