Little league, little minds...

After two years in T-ball, we finally experienced our first "ugly parents" incident.

T-ball is such fun; the kids are so small, some very uncoordinated, but all of them excited about playing, though not always playing ball. Digging in the dirt and twirling were common activities during games this year. All the parents are glad for the kids to try, and there generally isn't much pressure on the kids to perform. We had one exception this year, a dad who seemed to think that his son's future depended on every play. But for the most part, he was easy to deal with.

Then came the last night of our team's season, and there was a scheduling mixup. The field our team was supposed to play on was also scheduled to hold a game by teams in the farms division. The T-ball-ers were shifted to the T-ball field, since nobody seemed to be playing there. But a few minutes later, the teams scheduled for the T-ball field began to arrive -- apparently the National League games start a half hour later. One lady got very irate and pushy, demanding that we get off of "their" field.

Our coaches were mostly cool about it, but they got kinda pushy when working out the eventual solution (our teams were there first, so the farm teams were bumped). At some point, it stoped being about the kids' enjoyment and learning teamwork, and began to have more to do with the egos of the coaches and parents. This was just T-ball! They don't count runs, outs, errors, and everone gets a turn to bat and play the different positions! Our kids were more excited about the pizza party scheduled for after the game than the game itself!

Maybe I'm just not competitive enough for this. I don't understand why there even has to be National and American leagues in little league, much less in T-ball. Does anyone have a kids baseball league that is just about playing a game and getting some exercise, and not about pushy parents creating pushy kids?