Game Day II...The Mouth Heard 'Round the World

You know how at every kids sporting event there seems to be some obnoxious, loud-mouthed a-hole that spends the whole game razzing the officials and blurting out rude comments to no one's delight but his own? Yeah, well that guy has a daughter on Kailey's softball team. And remember when I wrote about how nice and refreshing it was to have all of the parents cheering for all of the kids? I spoke too soon. That utopian ideal of unbiased parental support during children's sporting events has been shot straight to hell.

Kailey's game was Monday night. It was a cold, cloudy, windy, miserable night for softball, so nobody was in a particularly good mood to begin with. Then Mouth began his taunting. First, it was directed at the umpire, who had made a couple of bad calls, calling balls strikes. But understand, being an umpire in an 8 and Under softball league has to be the most BORING job in the world. The girls pitch until they've thrown four balls, then the coach takes over. As you can imagine, probably fewer than 10% of the balls pitched by the girls are strikes. If you're an ump, you're probably going to make a couple of questionable calls out of sheer boredom. I'm not saying that it's right...I'm just saying.

So loud-mouth dad, who, incidentally, is always decked out in St. Louis Cardinal's attire which further draws my ire as a Cub fan, starts in on the ump. At first he drew a few snickers from the parents, but as he continued, an awkward silence descended on the crowd. Then, it got worse the next inning as his daughter took the mound. He turned his taunting from the umpire to THE EIGHT YEAR-OLD GIRLS ON THE OTHER TEAM!! When one of the girls would strike out, he'd yell, "RING 'ER UP!" I was mortified and getting really pissed off. Finally, his wife, bless her heart, turned around and laid into him for being a complete ass. He had a couple of things to say back to her, but eventually relented. I swear I heard a mental cheer erupt from the parents.

I just don't understand people like this. Did he think he was funny? Did he have a few too many at the local pub before heading to the game? Or is he just the world's biggest jerk? I don't know. But what I do know is that his behavior is horribly inappropriate at this age level, hell, at ANY age level. It teaches young kids that it's OK and even expected to disrespect game officials and to ridicule your opponent. So much for sportsmanship.

I can understand the competitive spirit. I played organized sports through high school, college and beyond. I've experienced the thrill of getting the game-winning hit, of hitting the jumper in the face of a trash-talking opponent, and of gunning down the runner at the plate. I get it. There's no feeling in the world like it. But I believe that healthy competition should build people up rather than tear down. When my opponent robs me of a base hit with an amazing diving catch, or drains a three-pointer with my hand in his face, he deserves praise for a great performance regardless of the color of his jersey. It just seems that tearing down your opponent has become an ugly part of competition in our present day society, and I hate it.

Jumping down off my soapbox and into more important news, Kailey had a great game in a 3-2 Blue Balls Bandit loss. She went 1 for 1 at the plate with a run scored. She also had two plays on the field, one from third base and one from shortstop, where she cleanly fielded the ball and made strong throws to first. The runners were safe on both occasions, but that's typical at this level: anything hit left of second base is going to be a hit. Most importantly, she didn't freeze to death during the game.

The Blue Balls play next on Saturday and we'll see if obnoxious dad can keep his trap shut. My money is on no.