“Hey, once you drove your drunk dad to mom’s parole hearing, what else is there?”
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!3 year old umpire - because they couldn’t find an adult umpire stupid enough to work the game.
After this, they won’t be able to find a teenage umpire stupid enough.
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Yep. I am in my final season of coaching youth baseball. I was on a LL Board for 7 years, President for 3. PARENTS ARE THE WORST. In all honesty, overwhelmingly most people, family, kids were great. And, when I was having a tough time with some entitled parent, I would remind myself that for every idiot parent, there were another 99 who were great. BUT, those handful of parents just suck the life out of you.
And, yes, those who berate umps have no sense of irony. By picking on (mostly volunteer) umps in the “interest” of having better calls, you ultimately drive away a lot of good umps, leaving inexperienced people, therefore, resulting in a lowered experience.
/shrug
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People care about all the wrong things sometimes, and it’s a habit that will eventually destroy the world for us.
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As a soccer coach of 10 years and having 3 kids referring for the last 6 years I’ll say this: having youth refs/umps is great for youth sports. They often call very fair games and know the rules better than anyone. But (and I think you are alluring to this) they are ill prepared for this sort of situation. This is where adult officiating should either be working the game (when it’s a known tense situation like playoffs or tourneys) or supervising for this sort of issue.
My youngest just had a state finals match where it was a kid ref. He ended up giving 14 yellow cards and one red and this was all with parents cursing at and calling my son and his teammates bitches and other vulgar names. He was completely incapable of handling the situation and the adult supervising had the attitude (when I spoke to him afterwards) that “this is how youth officials learn”.
Learn what?!? That youth sports parents are assholes?
You need adults to handle adults. And all youth sports rule books allow for those officiating a game the authority to end the game. This vid above just scars the youth official at the end of day.
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Things like this are why I’m glad I never pushed either of my kids into “organized” sports. Or “organized” religion, for that matter.
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I just finished coaching my 5th season of kids playing baseball. 99% of parents are just great, a few are idiots.
Around here it is hockey that brings out the crazy parents and coaches. I’ve seen my kid (as an official) get screamed at by a coach for something that had nothing to do with him at all. To the kid’s credit he (a 13 year old) ejected the 40 year old from the building. Not all kids are as confident as my kid (with 10 years of martial arts training behind him).
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Like most things, it only takes a relatively small fraction of predators to poison a community, ruining things for everyone.
Do some youth leagues kick out trouble-maker parents permanently? It seems like if after the second violation they were allowed only to drop off and pick up their kids, there’d be fewer of these problems.
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We have banned parents from the arenas on a few occasions. It hasn’t reached that level with baseball around here, like I said the passionate sport of choice is hockey.
My older kid was in a tournament in the Spring, last game of the season. The other team was out of control, causing lots of damage. Their parents were egging them on all through the game. Finally it collapsed into a big brawl on the ice after one of their kids attacked one of ours with a stick to the throat.
The parents at our end were sitting appalled, trying to get our kids to get out of there. The ones at the other end were utterly fucking insane. Screaming at the kids to hit harder, screaming at our kids, screaming at our coaches, getting aggressive with us. I honestly didn’t know what was going to happen.
Sadly, our kids will be playing them at some point next season again I’m sure.
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I see what you did there! Anyway, teal shorts are enough to make me take a swing…
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Movie directors used to tell extras in crowd scenes to yell “rhubarb”, as it turns out that a bunch of people doing that (on film) sounds like everything and nothing specific at the same time.
I can’t claim that A led to B (I mean I COULD - it’s the internet), but it feels legit to me.
But don’t ask me about “donnybrook”. I’m too lazy to look that up.
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Oh, I love that.
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Shit. Too late.
So much for being well-adjusted.
Is that from somewhere, or is it your creation? If the latter, bravo!
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Well, trash will be trash. Play ball!
At first I thought this was at the Williamsport Little League, then someone reminded me it’s not until August.
Titus.
