8th
too much regulation
i don’t know what makes us do it, but as adults we run in the direction that we tell our kids to run away from. my kids are too young for sports right now, but that doesn’t keep me from the ball field on a beautiful (albeit stiflingly hot) sunday afternoon for a championship game of five and six year old coach pitch/teeball.
i guess it makes sense in this pc world to try and make up a bunch of rules so that the game doesn’t get too one sided, but i don’t think anyone benefits in the end. rules such as 7 runs/inning, bat around the order, once the ball is chucked into the infield the play is dead, runners can only advance one base on infield hits, limiting the number of bases that a player can take after the play is ruled dead, you get the idea. i would quickly add two rules 1- no keeping score and 2- no tournament, but that’s far too confusing for the parents and grandparents, after all how would they know if their kid won?
what this massive amount of rules did in this game was give reason for the parents to harass the umpire, agitate coaches, nitpick every confusing rule violation, demonstrate to the kids a genuine disrespect for authority, and embarass themselves by contributing to the already growing problem of entitlement.
the bottom of the second inning went 1-2-3, and instead of celebrating three great defensive plays two women in the stands marched onto the field, chastised the 15 year old umpire, and “classily” marched their kid off of the field toting bat and glove, all the while he wondered what just happened.
what do i take from this? i’m going two different directions, first don’t take the game away from the kids. They are more interested in what color slushy they get at the end of the game and trust me they have plenty of time to become crazy like their parents. second on a totally different note, it seems that fewer hard and fast rules and a little better personal judgement may lead us in a better direction.
