An Outside View: Coach, Dad Blew One

Last week I was in Nashville on business. It just so happened that the AABC was having its state baseball tournament for 16 and under Mickey Mantle teams. Seymour’s team, which consists primarily of players from the high school junior varsity, was participating in the tournament so I decided to take in some of the action. After all, my son is on the Seymour team so how could I resist? While there waiting for Seymour to play, I caught an interesting game between two Knoxville teams who met in a losers’ bracket game. The winner would stay to play another day while the loser would go home to dream about what might have been. I was familiar with the two teams but won’t identify them here to save them the embarrassment. Neither team was state tournament material but one team was clearly superior and had easily beaten the other team every time they had played this season. It didn’t figure to be much of a contest. In fact, the one team was so confident that most of its players went swimming only hours before game time. If you are a baseball player, this is the ultimate no-no. But on this day, it seemed things might be different. The underdogs led by 4 runs going into the last inning. Their big lefty, who they called Cody, had silenced the other team’s bats. They were 3 outs away from the impossible. I stationed myself behind the fence next to the dugout. I could peer into the dugout and see the coaches pacing nervously in anticipation of just 3 more outs. I wanted to be able to see the joy in their eyes and see the celebration close-up. I always had a thing for underdogs. But things would get tense and with 2 outs the lead had dwindled to just one run. Cody’s pitches were no longer a mystery to the batters who were suddenly hitting everything in the gaps and to the fences. The 4 run lead was gone and when they looked at the scoreboard in disbelief, they now trailed by 3 runs. Cody was still trying to get that final out when it happened. With a 2 ball and no strike count on the batter, Cody got a little too close with the next pitch as the batter jumped back from an inside fastball. Cody looked to the bench. His coach, who I later discovered was also Cody’s dad, nodded and mouthed the words, “Do what you have to do.” I knew what that meant. It was code for hit the batter with the next pitch. Cody nodded and I got closer to the fence to get a better view. To my astonishment, Cody whizzed a fastball that struck the batter with a loud thud in the back. The opposing coach accused the pitcher of intentionally hitting his batter which is exactly what happened. Indignant, Coach Dad defended his pitcher and soon the coaches’ caps were brim to brim. The umpire had to come out and settle things down. In the meantime, Cody’s mom ran up to the fence where I was standing and shouted in a loud protest, “Cody would never do that on purpose.” I wanted to tell her that her precious little boy did exactly what he was being accused of but things were hot enough without me putting my two cents worth in. Mercifully, the third out was finally recorded. End of the excitement, right? Wrong! As fate would have it, Cody was the leadoff batter in the bottom of the inning. Will we see retribution? Will Cody get a taste of his own medicine? I was beginning to enjoy this. Cody wasn’t. He knew what was coming and he nervously stepped into the batter’s box. He had a bad case of happy feet with the approach of each pitch. However, our opposing pitcher was more interested in winning than retaliation. Cody struck out on 3 pitches in the anti climactic showdown. On the way back to the bench, a frustrated Cody flipped his bat in the air and watched as it landed harmlessly to the ground. As he enters the dugout, Coach Dad says, “You’re grounded for two weeks.” I took from that, Coach Dad thinks it is okay to deliberately hit another player with a baseball and risk permanently injuring or killing him but it isn’t okay to toss a bat in frustration after striking out. Was this a case of bad coaching or bad parenting? You decide. Either way it shows what is wrong with youth sports in our country today. A mature man in his 40’s is willing to risk hurting another player and for what? A meaningless ballgame. His thinking must have been that if he couldn’t beat ‘em he would at least hurt ‘em. He must have gotten a lot of personal satisfaction out of it. I hope so but I wonder if Coach Dad ever stopped to think about the lesson he was teaching his kids. Baseball is a great teacher of life’s lessons but unfortunately Coach Dad was busy teaching all of the wrong lessons.