Little League insanity
- Thread starter lonestar50
- Start date
In what context would you think it is ok to fire a pitch into the opposing team dugout?
Little league is the opposite of usssa and that is an insult to little league, but yes, that is insane if real.
I didn’t see any video of the alleged throw. Just some dude yapping.
So when my daughter was playing in 10U I was overheard telling her to plunk a batter. The league manager called me the next day. We were buddies so we laughed it off. He wasn't so amused the next year when someone overheard me retelling the story and reported me again.
Anyway, there was a tournament and for whatever reason this girl started taunting my daughter during a game. At the end of the game the other coach came over and apologized as it was clearly making my daughter upset. However, the girl showed up at other games we were playing and harassed my daughter from the stands. I had the league manager tell her to keep it down but she got loud again as soon as he was gone. Well, fate would have it we played them in the championship game. By that time my daughter didn't want to pitch because of the constant taunting. Spoke to their coach and he shrugged and said "I told her to stop, but she didn't, what more can I do?" So while my daughter is looking at me with tears on her face I told her "Hey, you can shut her up the first time she comes to bat. Plunk her. She won't chirp after that." She said no, that she didn't want to give her the satisfaction of getting on base and played the game. But like I said, someone overheard me and reported me.
Fun side-effect is that the story got around and girls now thought she threw at batters. And since she threw hard no one wanted to face her and certainly didn't talk shi.t to her.
Jump to the next season and we're playing against loud-mouth's team again. Buddy of mine is in town and at the game with us so I tell him the story. That's when I was overhead again. Funny bit is that my daughter did hit the girl that game, but it was clearly an accident as it bounced and hit her ankle. However, as the girl was walking to first my daughter stared her down and then grinned at her. So the legend of the plunking pitcher grew.
That girl ended up on our team for 14U. Was a great player and she and my daughter got along fine.
/csb
Anyway, there was a tournament and for whatever reason this girl started taunting my daughter during a game. At the end of the game the other coach came over and apologized as it was clearly making my daughter upset. However, the girl showed up at other games we were playing and harassed my daughter from the stands. I had the league manager tell her to keep it down but she got loud again as soon as he was gone. Well, fate would have it we played them in the championship game. By that time my daughter didn't want to pitch because of the constant taunting. Spoke to their coach and he shrugged and said "I told her to stop, but she didn't, what more can I do?" So while my daughter is looking at me with tears on her face I told her "Hey, you can shut her up the first time she comes to bat. Plunk her. She won't chirp after that." She said no, that she didn't want to give her the satisfaction of getting on base and played the game. But like I said, someone overheard me and reported me.
Fun side-effect is that the story got around and girls now thought she threw at batters. And since she threw hard no one wanted to face her and certainly didn't talk shi.t to her.
Jump to the next season and we're playing against loud-mouth's team again. Buddy of mine is in town and at the game with us so I tell him the story. That's when I was overhead again. Funny bit is that my daughter did hit the girl that game, but it was clearly an accident as it bounced and hit her ankle. However, as the girl was walking to first my daughter stared her down and then grinned at her. So the legend of the plunking pitcher grew.
That girl ended up on our team for 14U. Was a great player and she and my daughter got along fine.
/csb
Baseball is by far the douchiest sport in terms of adult behavior.
I'm not sure about that, but it is a sport where the parents are very concentrated around the action and everyone can hear what everyone else says. So parents are probably saying equally douchey things at football and soccer games but they are on the other side of the field or spread out in the stands so you don't really hear it as much.
1 of my kids never ran into parents like this, the other did a few times and I’d just pull him and take him for ice cream. There’s much better things to do than deal with parents like this
False. My son plays on a travel team and I never sit by the parents
I remember parents on opposing teams screaming back and forth at one another at a t-ball game. No outs and score wasn't kept, but man the parents cared!
Youth football is just as bad if not worse.
There are coaches that will tell their players to headhunt the other team's kids that are playing well against them.
Youth baseball/softball coaches do get batshitted though. The only time I have really had words with another coach was when one of his batters stood with his back foot directly behind the plate. The 13 year old ump didn't know how to handle it so I stopped the game and called the other coach over to talk with the ump.
I said that I don't want the kid called out for batting outside the box (what should have happened) I just didn't want this player to get hurt.
The other coach loudly said "If you pitcher throws strikes he won't get hit.". He said it loudly to get his crowd laughing.
I looked at him and matched his volume and said "Do you understand what you just said? Your batter is standing between the plate and my catcher, if my pitcher had thrown strikes he would have hit the batter.". That shut his crowd up quick.
He told the kid not to move but the kid moved himself out of the way anyways.
That coach didn't coach again after that season.
My son played travel ball for many years and in my experience, you are an outlier. We had an outlier or two over the years but most people set up not to far away from the fence, or in the stands, in the "V" going from 1st base to home to third base.
In my experience that until school ball, there was a lot of overlap with parents and coaches for football and baseball.
Oddly not a lot in my area, I was one of a handful that coached anything outside of football.
But the ones that did, more often than not, coached football with a completely different attitude than how they coached baseball.
For baseball they would be all calm and would walk through fundamentals with the kids.
But then for football they went straight to "be tougher! Hit harder!!".
I just couldn't explain the difference in approaches. It really bothered me because I really just wanted to teach kids how to play fundamental/technically sounds football.
I'm sure it varies by area and even by class within the same area. My kid's class in Ankeny was full of studs who were studs in more than one sport, not infrequently coached in part by their dads. I would say maybe 50% of the dads who coached - at least in an assistant capacity or at least heavily involved with practices in an unofficial capacity - coached more than one sport.
You’re absolutely right. I enjoy watching the game in peace. It’s nice.
That is probably healthy and depends on the parent. I liked to be involved or available to help warm up relief pitchers and such.
For some teams I was. Other teams there were already coaches, but there were a few of us who chipped in when asked. You should try it some time.
Last edited:
This is my first year not coaching baseball. It’s real nice to relax and simply watch the game. Plus we have assistant coaches who work with our pitchers help them warm up. Don’t want too many cooks in the kitchen
I guess one thing I would say is that you never know when your kid's last game will be. My kid ended up needing surgery as COVID hit, which took him out of circulation right as school ball was starting. By the time he recovered he lost interest and focused instead on football and lifting. Carpe diem and such.
I still coach his soccer team.
Since it’s a travel team a few of the coaches have far more experience with baseball than I ever had so it’s probably best to leave it to them.
I remember a kids dad on our team always sat way down the foul line out in the outfield during our little league games. Always thought that was peculiar. Then as we moved up to older divisions we all realized those weren't sodas and he was getting completely blasted with cooler he always had by his side. Good times.
The Little League in my town was WAY too political. I grew up playing Little League so I had all three of my sons play, and they liked it, but hated some aspects of it. Picking the All Star teams was particularly a joke. The people selected to be managers were all cronies of the League President., and managers picked the All-Star teams. Once they became Managers, they brought their young sons up two divisions ahead of where they should have played, and used the fact that their kids were playing in an upper division as "evidence" that their kid belonged on All Stars. My youngest son played in Majors as an 11 year-old, which is not uncommon. But the manager's kid played in Majors as a 9 year-old, and cried copiously every time he struck out, which was often. Just painful to watch.
The other big negative was that everyone (both dads and moms) knew something about baseball, and fancied himself or herself as an expert. We had to paint strips behind the backstop and ban parents from standing back there, because some of them would second guess the ball and strike calls by the 14 year-old home plate umpire. Loudly. What a disaster.
A couple of my boys bailed on their last year of Little League eligibility and played lacrosse instead. Relatively few parents knew a whole lot about lacrosse going in, so there was a whole lot less commentary from the stands, and a whole lot less acrimony.