Tweet
This is going to be a long post. I'm looking for feedback, support, criticism, etc. I have been involved with the same Little League for four years. It has been a trying experience. The most recent stuff is the most egregious and disheartening part. Keep in mind that I write for a living. So I tend to blabber on. But I hope to get out there the main story without making anyone read a book's worth of grief-filled stuff.
My son started with the local Little League when he was 5. I managed two seasons of T-ball after being recruited by league officials. There was some disorganization and poor communication from the start. But it didn't amount to much. We moved to coach-pitch for seasons 3, 4, 5 and 6. For season 3, I decided not to manage. The manager asked me to help him. And I agreed. He knew very little about the game. He didn't know basic fundamentals and didn't know things how many balls and strikes and which came first when saying the count, etc. It was obvious that kids weren't improving much in practice. About all he'd say was "get your elbow up". During our first game, I coached first base. He wasn't throwing the ball hard enough. He lobbed it. I had the same problem when I started in T-ball. I taught all of my kids to hit a thrown pitch. So we didn't use the tee. But I had a habit of not getting the ball to the plate, and it would dive and hit in front of the plate. After the first inning, I walked toward the dugout and met him at the gate. I started to suggest that he put a little more mustard on his throws. But I only got about four words out, and he yelled, "Do you want to pitch? Here! You pitch!" This wasn't a shout. This was yelling as loud as he could from just a few feet away. I don't think I've ever had anyone yell at me like that. He shoved his glove toward me. I refused to take it. I kept helping. At the end of the game, he apologized.
This coach had no idea about the rules for our division. Other teams told him it was seven pitches per batter. But he insisted on three strikes. Since he never taught the kids to hit and wouldn't let me get very involved in their hitting mechanics, most of the kids struck out for the first 2-3 games. In fact, I think my kid was the only one who made contact for a few games. After getting trounced, he decided that the seven-pitch rule sounded like a good idea. So he switched to that, and our kids started to make some contact.
So, it's our last game of our coach-pitch season. I'm coaching first. We're playing a team with a kid who is two years older than most of our guys and is built like Greg Luzinski. The kid smashes a ball over the short fence. (We played our coach-pitch games on a T-ball field with 115 fences.) At the end of the inning, as we're preparing for our last AB, the coach goes to the mound and can't find one of the game balls. Nobody is aware of what's going on. But he walks to the other team's dugout and insists that they give him the ball. It turns out that the opposing coach decided that he would give the ball to the kid who homered. But our coach throws a fit and wants the ball back. He even argues that the ball would not have been a homer on the other team's home field. Before long, our coach is shouting, and the opposing coach is standing around shortstop approaching the mound. Both guys are talking smack, "You wanna go. Let's Go!" It was that kind of stuff. I was very upset to see a coach acting like that. But it was our last game.
So we move to Season 4. I've decided there is no way my kid is playing for that coach again. So I volunteered to manage. I got a team. We had some talent. I pounded the angry coach every time we played in my Season 4 and did the same for Season 5. But, during these seasons, our league's administrators switched up. It went from being somewhat disorganized with poor communication to being a total mess. We had five games on fields that were double-booked, and we had to move to a different field to play. We had two games scheduled for the same day. I told the league president four times, and he said he was going to do something about it. He never did. I played the early game that day, and he called later to ask why I wasn't at the field to play some team visiting from 40 miles away.
Over Season 4 and Season 5, I discovered that our league president was forgetful and/or uncaring. He rarely returned phone calls and was very disorganized. But he seemed to mean well. At the end of Season 5, I had visited some other parks. It was obvious that our park was the nastiest of the bunch. We had dirty bathrooms, paint chipping off the dugouts, trash all over the park, an unpaved parking lot with huge water-filled potholes, fields that didn't drain, very little field maintenance equipment, etc. In fact, we played Season 3 with an orange deer fence closing off right field on the T-ball field because there was a drainage issue that caused the field to be extremely soggy and muddy.
After Season 5, I decided it was time to make a decision. There is another league in town. Everyone, dozens of people, told me to go to the other league. But I resisted. It is not a Little League, and I had these visions of playing in the Little League World Series. So I decided to get involved. My motto was, "you can be a part of the problem or a part of the solution." Instead of fleeing like so many other baseball families, I was determined to fix our league.
Last summer, I met with a few parents and formed an informal committee. A few people caught wind of this via Facebook, and they spread a rumor that we were trying to get a local government grant. While that was something on our minds, it wasn't our purpose. We just wanted to have better facilities. We wanted a playground (we had a swingset with two swings), a paved parking lot, better practice fields, some landscaping, painting, field repairs, etc. The park is city-owned and maintained. When the parks and rec supervisor heard we wanted a grant, he sent out an email to the board and seemed to be strongly opposed. He noted that only the city could get the grant and that they weren't interested in our problems. The league president forwarded the email to our group, and I did a reply all to explain what our purpose was and that we were very unhappy with the park, which was clearly neglected in favor of the city's other, more popular, league.
The city P&R guy called the league president complaining that I sent HIM an email, and he had the league official tell me that the P&R guy only communicates with the league president or VP. Two months later, I ran successfully for our league's board. I was elected largely because parents supported my interest in helping get the league some stuff. Days before the election, I met with an elected city commissioner and discussed the condition of the park and fields. He recommended that I speak to a second commissioner. The park was in her district, he said. I contacted her by email, and she forwarded my email to P&R guy, who contacted the league president again. And he called me yelling at me for trying to communicate with P&R guy.
By then, I was angry. I called P&R guy at his office and threw a fit and asserted that I am a taxpayer and would contact an elected official if I so chose to and that, if he insisted on trying to silence me, I would take action to ensure that he understands my First Amendment rights. After lots of yelling, I calmed down enough to explain that I was only trying to help our kids. That must have left an impression. And I'll get to that in a moment. But the real issues started at this point.
Our league has a long history of issues. As I was coming aboard, several board members left in a huff over something I wasn't aware of. That meant we only had seven board members on our new board. Four of us were brand new. Of the three others, I recommended the most senior to be our league's new president. (The old president had departed.) He declined. Another guy said he works at night and could not dedicate that much time. That left the third guy. He was all gung-ho for the job, and his wife also was on the board. So she was clearly in support of him. As we were handing out titles, I was mostly concerned with my own role. I took four different positions, including field maintenance person. I took that spot reluctantly because I knew very little about maintaining fields. But I had done considerable research while exploring potential upgrades and a maintenance plan, including making a list of desired equipment.
So here we were at the start of Season 6. My son was moving up to Minors. And there were two coaches already in Minors. We only had enough kids for two teams. So I bit my lip and my son played for the notorious coach again. Two other kids from my championship coach-pitch team also were picked to play for this coach. And the guy was absolutely terrible. He screamed at his son and yelled at other kids. He didn't know the rules. One of my favorite kids scored but didn't slide. The ump called him out. The catcher was in front of the plate still catching the ball when he crossed. Instead of arguing the call, the coach screamed at this kid, and the kid came back to the dugout in tears.
While this was taking place, our new league president was doing a terrible job. He yelled at me multiple times for things that seemed ridiculous. He was mad because I announced on Facebook that we were holding a coach's meeting and invited anyone interested in coaching to attend. He said we'd have all sorts of people there. Well, we didn't have enough coaches. So I thought it was a good idea. He disagreed. That's fine. But he screamed at me about it. He did this numerous times, too. And he screamed at my friend, whose son played for me for three seasons. She was on the board, too, and volunteered to be concession manager. He made her so mad that she resigned and ended up pulling our most talented 8-year-old out of the league at the end of the season. Plus, the guy even ticked off the notoriously bad coach so much that he also resigned. Of course, that coach had no business on the board in the first place. And that ended Season 6.
Now we're coming into Season 7, year of the witch. The new president of the league was so disorganized, incompetent and deceitful that he drove the league into the ground over the winter. Apparently, there were accounting discrepancies over the winter. Since I didn't pay close attention at our first meeting, I never realized that he had named himself as the treasurer temporarily while we searched for someone we could appoint to that position. Naturally, he never gave any of us financial reports. We had no idea about the league's finances. Then, he and his wife botched uniforms and opening day ceremonies. The ceremony was not held for the first time in decades, and kids were forced to change into uniforms at the parade line-up. We didn't have hats or belts. So I had kids playing on opening day with their pants falling down and with 10 different ball caps. And you can imagine where the finance stuff is going. We'll get into that in a bit.
What irked me most this spring is that the president decided to give a guy who had never managed a manager spot over me. We had enough kids for three teams. But the president and VP shuffled kids around to other divisions and left me out in the cold. Notorious coach and this inexperienced guy both were given teams. I felt disrespected. And about half of the kids in our division wanted me as their coach. Their parents wanted me to coach, too. I had 10 kids on my Spring 2011 team, and 6 were moving up. Two others (including my son) had moved up in fall. All of those eight plus about six more wanted to be on my team. So I spoke up. I am not the kind of person to do that. But I did. And when I did, I really cut loose. I was frustrated and tired. I had been working 4-6 hours on the fields ALONE most days. And these people acted like I didn't even exist. Plus, they lied to me about Little League age and roster restrictions, and I caught them after reading up on it. After I complained, they told me we could add a third team if I could find a few more players. So I found two more kids to play, and they gave me a team.
I then sent an email to one of the other coaches. I guess that was a mistake. I wanted him to know that I had no hard feelings and didn't dislike him but felt that I should have had a team based on my experience, my reputation among the kids and parents and my volunteer work on behalf of the league. Apparently, he resented this or something. He and the other Minors coach decided to gang up on me. I had never lost a game to another team from our city. But these guys were out to get me. One would tell the other pitch counts from previous games. They would root for each other, too. So they were just always buddying up and talking. I felt all alone like the uncool high school kid.
And both coaches turned out to be equally terrible people. The new coach was all about winning, winning, winning. He actually pulled out his rule book multiple times per game. He even tried to argue that my player was out when he slid into home and got hit in the back by a throw from third base. He also refused to let me use a sub from another team after one of his kids drew a walk and hit my catcher in the mouth with a thrown bat. My catcher had to stay in the game and move to left field with a bloody lip because the guy wouldn't let me use a fill-in. He also freaked out and got lippy with my wife because she handed him a lineup without positions for all of my kids. Now, this was the guy who got an email from me. The other guy, the notorious coach, was even worse. He cared more about him winning than about teaching the kids the game and never even gave a thought to whether they were enjoying themselves. He shouted all the time, argued with the umpires and acted like we were playing for the World Series. I had a few pitchers who couldn't throw strikes. So we walked 14 batters in a game against the notorious coach's team. Yet we only allowed two hits, and our offense smacked the ball. But the other team won by a run or two. And the coach acted like he had defeated the Yankees.
So...let's skip ahead a few games. We're playing a game one day. My assistant coach was almost never there because he managed another team and didn't bother to tell me before he offered to coach. But, on this particular day, he's standing next to me. A kid from the notorious coach's team took off for third base. I told the catcher to hold the throw. Our third baseman doesn't catch the ball very well, and the catcher had been making wild throws. Since there were runners advancing to second and third, I preferred to take my chances with the batter instead of throwing the ball into left field and allowing both runners to score.
So my assistant coach throws a fit and tells me he's going to take his two sons (brothers, of course) off the team. I told him that I didn't think he should punish them because he disagrees with me. So he kept going on, and I asked him to leave the field. He wouldn't. I said something back, and he said, "If you say another word to me, I'm going to knock you out." So, my own coach is saying this. I had no idea what to do. I called time and talked to the home plate umpire, who was our league president. He refused to make the guy leave and said it was my problem. So I had to coach the rest of the game with this guy standing there by my dugout. During the same game, the notorious coach yelled at his son, saying, "Son, if you think you're scared of the ball, how about if I hit you with a bat if you back out of the box again?" One of my own parents hollered from the bleachers over that one.
As the season wore on, it became obvious that my assistant coach, whose older son was dating the daughter of one of the two other Minors coaches, had joined these two other coaches in their little clique and clearly wished his kids were on their teams. Every time I was in the park, they would be huddled together for at least 5-10 minutes. And this assistant coach insisted that his kid be the star. He was our best pitcher, or so I thought. But he couldn't throw strikes and had been told by dad not to listen to my instruction. It was pointless for me to talk to him. Most of my other kids were great. But I had the youngest team. My average age was 8.5, and the average age of the other coaches were 9 and 10, respectively.
So, my team lost a lot of games. It was my worst season as a coach in terms of W-L record. But I also knew that our team would be the juggernaut the following season. Almost my whole team would be back in the same division while most of the good players from the other teams were to move up.
So, now it's closing ceremony day, I arrived at the field to find that three of my players had played in a game for the notorious coach. I inquired and found out that he and the other Minors coach organized a scrimmage and invited some of my players but didn't invite my son, who was one of the premier players in the division and also didn't invite me to coach or two watch. The other two Minors coaches both were involved in this scrimmage. I said something to one of them, and they brushed it off like it was no big deal.
So...season's over. It's all star time. The coach with the average age of 10 is the one who was selected ahead of me and who apparently dislikes me. His team won the league title. So he picked the all star team. Naturally, he picked the notorious coach to be his assistant. Then they overlooked me for the other assistant coach spot and picked someone else. In fact, they never even told me a thing about all stars. The first I knew about all stars was when one of my kids' parents called to tell me he was picked. Two kids from my team were picked. A third was probably shafted because they picked the notorious coach's kid ahead of my only other player who was eligible for the tournament. My son is too young to play. So that was a moot point.
Anyway, I decided before the end of the season to switch to the other league. But I blew my top a little with some Facebook posts about how these two coaches treated me, and it resulted in one of the coaches and his wife starting a stupid little Facebook war with me. I'll be the first to admit that I was stupid in letting my emotions get to me.
I guess I just wanted to tell you my story. Perhaps those other coaches would have another perspective. But I felt like I was disrespected and mistreated and that they even rubbed my nose in it to be spiteful and ganged up against me like a couple of middle school bullies.
And the league president? Well, in addition to yelling at me over silly stuff, he resigned about a month after I resigned. But he resigned because he is being investigated for stealing funds. When I resigned, I insisted that the board get to the bottom of the finances. The VP sent an ultimatum to the president insisting that he turn over financial records in accordance with our charter. When he turned over the info, they found several unauthorized purchases and cash withdrawals. Obviously, that guy is no longer involved with the league, and the police are probably going to slap some cuffs on him soon.
What sucks most is that I was very enthusiastic about this season. I had convinced the wife and some parents to stick with this league. I promised them I would get it fixed. And I never got the chance. The president strong-armed everything and never let anyone get involved in planning, organizing and implementing stuff. He also ignored advice and suggestions. The only good that came from the season was that the Parks and Rec guy did a ton of work to fix up the park over the winter. They installed a well to help the grass stay greener, added some landscaping, graded the parking lot, put tarps for shade on the bleachers of all fields, painted the dugouts, concession stand and bathrooms, fixed the drainage issues on two fields, etc. I just sort of grinned on opening day and pretended I didn't know how all of the improvements came about. Many parents commented on the looks of the park. It filled my heart with happiness to know that I had helped to make our league a better place. But it went drastically downhill from there.
Since the end of the regular season, my son has joined a travel ball team. I feared that he wouldn't enjoy it as much because of the higher talent level and movement away from his close friends. But it turns out that he still stands out and has a better rapport with the other talented players than with some of the kids from our trashy rec ball league.
So, comments, well wishes, condolences, complaints? I told you that I write for a living! I have had all of this weighing on my for days. And I needed to vent and get some sort of feedback as to whether I have overreacted to how this season went.
Thanks
My son started with the local Little League when he was 5. I managed two seasons of T-ball after being recruited by league officials. There was some disorganization and poor communication from the start. But it didn't amount to much. We moved to coach-pitch for seasons 3, 4, 5 and 6. For season 3, I decided not to manage. The manager asked me to help him. And I agreed. He knew very little about the game. He didn't know basic fundamentals and didn't know things how many balls and strikes and which came first when saying the count, etc. It was obvious that kids weren't improving much in practice. About all he'd say was "get your elbow up". During our first game, I coached first base. He wasn't throwing the ball hard enough. He lobbed it. I had the same problem when I started in T-ball. I taught all of my kids to hit a thrown pitch. So we didn't use the tee. But I had a habit of not getting the ball to the plate, and it would dive and hit in front of the plate. After the first inning, I walked toward the dugout and met him at the gate. I started to suggest that he put a little more mustard on his throws. But I only got about four words out, and he yelled, "Do you want to pitch? Here! You pitch!" This wasn't a shout. This was yelling as loud as he could from just a few feet away. I don't think I've ever had anyone yell at me like that. He shoved his glove toward me. I refused to take it. I kept helping. At the end of the game, he apologized.
This coach had no idea about the rules for our division. Other teams told him it was seven pitches per batter. But he insisted on three strikes. Since he never taught the kids to hit and wouldn't let me get very involved in their hitting mechanics, most of the kids struck out for the first 2-3 games. In fact, I think my kid was the only one who made contact for a few games. After getting trounced, he decided that the seven-pitch rule sounded like a good idea. So he switched to that, and our kids started to make some contact.
So, it's our last game of our coach-pitch season. I'm coaching first. We're playing a team with a kid who is two years older than most of our guys and is built like Greg Luzinski. The kid smashes a ball over the short fence. (We played our coach-pitch games on a T-ball field with 115 fences.) At the end of the inning, as we're preparing for our last AB, the coach goes to the mound and can't find one of the game balls. Nobody is aware of what's going on. But he walks to the other team's dugout and insists that they give him the ball. It turns out that the opposing coach decided that he would give the ball to the kid who homered. But our coach throws a fit and wants the ball back. He even argues that the ball would not have been a homer on the other team's home field. Before long, our coach is shouting, and the opposing coach is standing around shortstop approaching the mound. Both guys are talking smack, "You wanna go. Let's Go!" It was that kind of stuff. I was very upset to see a coach acting like that. But it was our last game.
So we move to Season 4. I've decided there is no way my kid is playing for that coach again. So I volunteered to manage. I got a team. We had some talent. I pounded the angry coach every time we played in my Season 4 and did the same for Season 5. But, during these seasons, our league's administrators switched up. It went from being somewhat disorganized with poor communication to being a total mess. We had five games on fields that were double-booked, and we had to move to a different field to play. We had two games scheduled for the same day. I told the league president four times, and he said he was going to do something about it. He never did. I played the early game that day, and he called later to ask why I wasn't at the field to play some team visiting from 40 miles away.
Over Season 4 and Season 5, I discovered that our league president was forgetful and/or uncaring. He rarely returned phone calls and was very disorganized. But he seemed to mean well. At the end of Season 5, I had visited some other parks. It was obvious that our park was the nastiest of the bunch. We had dirty bathrooms, paint chipping off the dugouts, trash all over the park, an unpaved parking lot with huge water-filled potholes, fields that didn't drain, very little field maintenance equipment, etc. In fact, we played Season 3 with an orange deer fence closing off right field on the T-ball field because there was a drainage issue that caused the field to be extremely soggy and muddy.
After Season 5, I decided it was time to make a decision. There is another league in town. Everyone, dozens of people, told me to go to the other league. But I resisted. It is not a Little League, and I had these visions of playing in the Little League World Series. So I decided to get involved. My motto was, "you can be a part of the problem or a part of the solution." Instead of fleeing like so many other baseball families, I was determined to fix our league.
Last summer, I met with a few parents and formed an informal committee. A few people caught wind of this via Facebook, and they spread a rumor that we were trying to get a local government grant. While that was something on our minds, it wasn't our purpose. We just wanted to have better facilities. We wanted a playground (we had a swingset with two swings), a paved parking lot, better practice fields, some landscaping, painting, field repairs, etc. The park is city-owned and maintained. When the parks and rec supervisor heard we wanted a grant, he sent out an email to the board and seemed to be strongly opposed. He noted that only the city could get the grant and that they weren't interested in our problems. The league president forwarded the email to our group, and I did a reply all to explain what our purpose was and that we were very unhappy with the park, which was clearly neglected in favor of the city's other, more popular, league.
The city P&R guy called the league president complaining that I sent HIM an email, and he had the league official tell me that the P&R guy only communicates with the league president or VP. Two months later, I ran successfully for our league's board. I was elected largely because parents supported my interest in helping get the league some stuff. Days before the election, I met with an elected city commissioner and discussed the condition of the park and fields. He recommended that I speak to a second commissioner. The park was in her district, he said. I contacted her by email, and she forwarded my email to P&R guy, who contacted the league president again. And he called me yelling at me for trying to communicate with P&R guy.
By then, I was angry. I called P&R guy at his office and threw a fit and asserted that I am a taxpayer and would contact an elected official if I so chose to and that, if he insisted on trying to silence me, I would take action to ensure that he understands my First Amendment rights. After lots of yelling, I calmed down enough to explain that I was only trying to help our kids. That must have left an impression. And I'll get to that in a moment. But the real issues started at this point.
Our league has a long history of issues. As I was coming aboard, several board members left in a huff over something I wasn't aware of. That meant we only had seven board members on our new board. Four of us were brand new. Of the three others, I recommended the most senior to be our league's new president. (The old president had departed.) He declined. Another guy said he works at night and could not dedicate that much time. That left the third guy. He was all gung-ho for the job, and his wife also was on the board. So she was clearly in support of him. As we were handing out titles, I was mostly concerned with my own role. I took four different positions, including field maintenance person. I took that spot reluctantly because I knew very little about maintaining fields. But I had done considerable research while exploring potential upgrades and a maintenance plan, including making a list of desired equipment.
So here we were at the start of Season 6. My son was moving up to Minors. And there were two coaches already in Minors. We only had enough kids for two teams. So I bit my lip and my son played for the notorious coach again. Two other kids from my championship coach-pitch team also were picked to play for this coach. And the guy was absolutely terrible. He screamed at his son and yelled at other kids. He didn't know the rules. One of my favorite kids scored but didn't slide. The ump called him out. The catcher was in front of the plate still catching the ball when he crossed. Instead of arguing the call, the coach screamed at this kid, and the kid came back to the dugout in tears.
While this was taking place, our new league president was doing a terrible job. He yelled at me multiple times for things that seemed ridiculous. He was mad because I announced on Facebook that we were holding a coach's meeting and invited anyone interested in coaching to attend. He said we'd have all sorts of people there. Well, we didn't have enough coaches. So I thought it was a good idea. He disagreed. That's fine. But he screamed at me about it. He did this numerous times, too. And he screamed at my friend, whose son played for me for three seasons. She was on the board, too, and volunteered to be concession manager. He made her so mad that she resigned and ended up pulling our most talented 8-year-old out of the league at the end of the season. Plus, the guy even ticked off the notoriously bad coach so much that he also resigned. Of course, that coach had no business on the board in the first place. And that ended Season 6.
Now we're coming into Season 7, year of the witch. The new president of the league was so disorganized, incompetent and deceitful that he drove the league into the ground over the winter. Apparently, there were accounting discrepancies over the winter. Since I didn't pay close attention at our first meeting, I never realized that he had named himself as the treasurer temporarily while we searched for someone we could appoint to that position. Naturally, he never gave any of us financial reports. We had no idea about the league's finances. Then, he and his wife botched uniforms and opening day ceremonies. The ceremony was not held for the first time in decades, and kids were forced to change into uniforms at the parade line-up. We didn't have hats or belts. So I had kids playing on opening day with their pants falling down and with 10 different ball caps. And you can imagine where the finance stuff is going. We'll get into that in a bit.
What irked me most this spring is that the president decided to give a guy who had never managed a manager spot over me. We had enough kids for three teams. But the president and VP shuffled kids around to other divisions and left me out in the cold. Notorious coach and this inexperienced guy both were given teams. I felt disrespected. And about half of the kids in our division wanted me as their coach. Their parents wanted me to coach, too. I had 10 kids on my Spring 2011 team, and 6 were moving up. Two others (including my son) had moved up in fall. All of those eight plus about six more wanted to be on my team. So I spoke up. I am not the kind of person to do that. But I did. And when I did, I really cut loose. I was frustrated and tired. I had been working 4-6 hours on the fields ALONE most days. And these people acted like I didn't even exist. Plus, they lied to me about Little League age and roster restrictions, and I caught them after reading up on it. After I complained, they told me we could add a third team if I could find a few more players. So I found two more kids to play, and they gave me a team.
I then sent an email to one of the other coaches. I guess that was a mistake. I wanted him to know that I had no hard feelings and didn't dislike him but felt that I should have had a team based on my experience, my reputation among the kids and parents and my volunteer work on behalf of the league. Apparently, he resented this or something. He and the other Minors coach decided to gang up on me. I had never lost a game to another team from our city. But these guys were out to get me. One would tell the other pitch counts from previous games. They would root for each other, too. So they were just always buddying up and talking. I felt all alone like the uncool high school kid.
And both coaches turned out to be equally terrible people. The new coach was all about winning, winning, winning. He actually pulled out his rule book multiple times per game. He even tried to argue that my player was out when he slid into home and got hit in the back by a throw from third base. He also refused to let me use a sub from another team after one of his kids drew a walk and hit my catcher in the mouth with a thrown bat. My catcher had to stay in the game and move to left field with a bloody lip because the guy wouldn't let me use a fill-in. He also freaked out and got lippy with my wife because she handed him a lineup without positions for all of my kids. Now, this was the guy who got an email from me. The other guy, the notorious coach, was even worse. He cared more about him winning than about teaching the kids the game and never even gave a thought to whether they were enjoying themselves. He shouted all the time, argued with the umpires and acted like we were playing for the World Series. I had a few pitchers who couldn't throw strikes. So we walked 14 batters in a game against the notorious coach's team. Yet we only allowed two hits, and our offense smacked the ball. But the other team won by a run or two. And the coach acted like he had defeated the Yankees.
So...let's skip ahead a few games. We're playing a game one day. My assistant coach was almost never there because he managed another team and didn't bother to tell me before he offered to coach. But, on this particular day, he's standing next to me. A kid from the notorious coach's team took off for third base. I told the catcher to hold the throw. Our third baseman doesn't catch the ball very well, and the catcher had been making wild throws. Since there were runners advancing to second and third, I preferred to take my chances with the batter instead of throwing the ball into left field and allowing both runners to score.
So my assistant coach throws a fit and tells me he's going to take his two sons (brothers, of course) off the team. I told him that I didn't think he should punish them because he disagrees with me. So he kept going on, and I asked him to leave the field. He wouldn't. I said something back, and he said, "If you say another word to me, I'm going to knock you out." So, my own coach is saying this. I had no idea what to do. I called time and talked to the home plate umpire, who was our league president. He refused to make the guy leave and said it was my problem. So I had to coach the rest of the game with this guy standing there by my dugout. During the same game, the notorious coach yelled at his son, saying, "Son, if you think you're scared of the ball, how about if I hit you with a bat if you back out of the box again?" One of my own parents hollered from the bleachers over that one.
As the season wore on, it became obvious that my assistant coach, whose older son was dating the daughter of one of the two other Minors coaches, had joined these two other coaches in their little clique and clearly wished his kids were on their teams. Every time I was in the park, they would be huddled together for at least 5-10 minutes. And this assistant coach insisted that his kid be the star. He was our best pitcher, or so I thought. But he couldn't throw strikes and had been told by dad not to listen to my instruction. It was pointless for me to talk to him. Most of my other kids were great. But I had the youngest team. My average age was 8.5, and the average age of the other coaches were 9 and 10, respectively.
So, my team lost a lot of games. It was my worst season as a coach in terms of W-L record. But I also knew that our team would be the juggernaut the following season. Almost my whole team would be back in the same division while most of the good players from the other teams were to move up.
So, now it's closing ceremony day, I arrived at the field to find that three of my players had played in a game for the notorious coach. I inquired and found out that he and the other Minors coach organized a scrimmage and invited some of my players but didn't invite my son, who was one of the premier players in the division and also didn't invite me to coach or two watch. The other two Minors coaches both were involved in this scrimmage. I said something to one of them, and they brushed it off like it was no big deal.
So...season's over. It's all star time. The coach with the average age of 10 is the one who was selected ahead of me and who apparently dislikes me. His team won the league title. So he picked the all star team. Naturally, he picked the notorious coach to be his assistant. Then they overlooked me for the other assistant coach spot and picked someone else. In fact, they never even told me a thing about all stars. The first I knew about all stars was when one of my kids' parents called to tell me he was picked. Two kids from my team were picked. A third was probably shafted because they picked the notorious coach's kid ahead of my only other player who was eligible for the tournament. My son is too young to play. So that was a moot point.
Anyway, I decided before the end of the season to switch to the other league. But I blew my top a little with some Facebook posts about how these two coaches treated me, and it resulted in one of the coaches and his wife starting a stupid little Facebook war with me. I'll be the first to admit that I was stupid in letting my emotions get to me.
I guess I just wanted to tell you my story. Perhaps those other coaches would have another perspective. But I felt like I was disrespected and mistreated and that they even rubbed my nose in it to be spiteful and ganged up against me like a couple of middle school bullies.
And the league president? Well, in addition to yelling at me over silly stuff, he resigned about a month after I resigned. But he resigned because he is being investigated for stealing funds. When I resigned, I insisted that the board get to the bottom of the finances. The VP sent an ultimatum to the president insisting that he turn over financial records in accordance with our charter. When he turned over the info, they found several unauthorized purchases and cash withdrawals. Obviously, that guy is no longer involved with the league, and the police are probably going to slap some cuffs on him soon.
What sucks most is that I was very enthusiastic about this season. I had convinced the wife and some parents to stick with this league. I promised them I would get it fixed. And I never got the chance. The president strong-armed everything and never let anyone get involved in planning, organizing and implementing stuff. He also ignored advice and suggestions. The only good that came from the season was that the Parks and Rec guy did a ton of work to fix up the park over the winter. They installed a well to help the grass stay greener, added some landscaping, graded the parking lot, put tarps for shade on the bleachers of all fields, painted the dugouts, concession stand and bathrooms, fixed the drainage issues on two fields, etc. I just sort of grinned on opening day and pretended I didn't know how all of the improvements came about. Many parents commented on the looks of the park. It filled my heart with happiness to know that I had helped to make our league a better place. But it went drastically downhill from there.
Since the end of the regular season, my son has joined a travel ball team. I feared that he wouldn't enjoy it as much because of the higher talent level and movement away from his close friends. But it turns out that he still stands out and has a better rapport with the other talented players than with some of the kids from our trashy rec ball league.
So, comments, well wishes, condolences, complaints? I told you that I write for a living! I have had all of this weighing on my for days. And I needed to vent and get some sort of feedback as to whether I have overreacted to how this season went.
Thanks
:stupidme:
Comment