I know what you're thinking; T-ball, right? I would think the same thing, too. Let me explain a bit:
So last year we moved to Texas to a smaller community between Austin and Waco. I didn't realize sports were taken so serious here. I mean, the high school football stadium is the same size as many college stadiums, at least to my football-naïve eye. This year our oldest is in kindergarten and we signed him up for T-ball. My wife was originally panicking about him not having cleats, pants, etc. I told her to relax as me, myself, having grown up in a baseball family and spent plenty years playing baseball, remembered back to my T-ball [as a side note, it was coach pitch and you hit from the T if you could get the coaches pitch.. not sure what's up with this strictly T stuff, but I digress] and the Sandy City Rec league gave you a stupid Sandy City shirt with a number and a cheap hat. That's it. We all wore sweat pants or jeans with regular shoes. Not here. Full outfit. But this is all beside the point. Anyway, there are apparently really competitive tournaments for T-ball that ultimately converge to a state championship (seriously?)
Anyway, my son is actually pretty decent at baseball, especially considering we technically put him in kindergarten a year early as he has a late July birthday and should have been in the class below. But this is still irrelevant as this is T-ball. Seriously. T-ball. You know, where you play, don't really keep score, everyone has fun, everyone gets a trophy, and you learn a little bit about the game. No, not really. Here it's competitive. So anyway, we've played two games thus far. There are 12 total kids on the team and he's right on par with them, if not decently above-average. So of their 5 inning games, they had him sit out the last two innings the first game. During the last inning, apparently one of the kids in the field had to go to the bathroom and it "couldn't wait". So they sent him to the bathroom and attempted to send my kid to right field (the only position they have him play -- even in practice). When the umpire asked about batting substitution (apparently they would have to replace the kid in the batting order with my kid). I guess this was a no-go as they had my kid return to the bench while they played 8 guys (WTF?). So leaving the game, I was pretty pissed about the fact that they didn't just rotate people in and out to let everyone play, they had him sit 2/5 innings. I told him that at the next game to let them know he sat out two innings if they wanted him to sit again.
Fast forward to tonight, their second game. 10 kids show up. They only play a total of four innings this game. Simple, right? Not even half the team would have to sit out for an inning. Not so. They parked his *** on the bench the last two innings, making a total of 9 innings played and 4 where he's sat out. I could see the oversight of the first game. I could even see the oversight of failing to realize he didn't really play the first game and having him sit out one of the innings this game. But when you only have one guy on the bench and you sit him more than 1 inning when you only have 1 extra guy, that's pretty damn blatant. I'm a very calm person. I went and stood behind the dugout and was about to have some words with his coach. I don't want to do anything and have it backfire on my kid, but he's curious why he keeps sitting out. My plan is to call the coach tomorrow. I've calmed down a bit in trying to bring this to his attention without wanting to rip him a new one, but that will depend on how he responds.
So, I'm pretty pissed off about this. I just want my kid to have fun. There's no reason for any of this, really. I mean, this is T-ball. I can't believe I'm having to do something that a parent of maybe a high school baseball player would do.
Any thoughts?
So last year we moved to Texas to a smaller community between Austin and Waco. I didn't realize sports were taken so serious here. I mean, the high school football stadium is the same size as many college stadiums, at least to my football-naïve eye. This year our oldest is in kindergarten and we signed him up for T-ball. My wife was originally panicking about him not having cleats, pants, etc. I told her to relax as me, myself, having grown up in a baseball family and spent plenty years playing baseball, remembered back to my T-ball [as a side note, it was coach pitch and you hit from the T if you could get the coaches pitch.. not sure what's up with this strictly T stuff, but I digress] and the Sandy City Rec league gave you a stupid Sandy City shirt with a number and a cheap hat. That's it. We all wore sweat pants or jeans with regular shoes. Not here. Full outfit. But this is all beside the point. Anyway, there are apparently really competitive tournaments for T-ball that ultimately converge to a state championship (seriously?)
Anyway, my son is actually pretty decent at baseball, especially considering we technically put him in kindergarten a year early as he has a late July birthday and should have been in the class below. But this is still irrelevant as this is T-ball. Seriously. T-ball. You know, where you play, don't really keep score, everyone has fun, everyone gets a trophy, and you learn a little bit about the game. No, not really. Here it's competitive. So anyway, we've played two games thus far. There are 12 total kids on the team and he's right on par with them, if not decently above-average. So of their 5 inning games, they had him sit out the last two innings the first game. During the last inning, apparently one of the kids in the field had to go to the bathroom and it "couldn't wait". So they sent him to the bathroom and attempted to send my kid to right field (the only position they have him play -- even in practice). When the umpire asked about batting substitution (apparently they would have to replace the kid in the batting order with my kid). I guess this was a no-go as they had my kid return to the bench while they played 8 guys (WTF?). So leaving the game, I was pretty pissed about the fact that they didn't just rotate people in and out to let everyone play, they had him sit 2/5 innings. I told him that at the next game to let them know he sat out two innings if they wanted him to sit again.
Fast forward to tonight, their second game. 10 kids show up. They only play a total of four innings this game. Simple, right? Not even half the team would have to sit out for an inning. Not so. They parked his *** on the bench the last two innings, making a total of 9 innings played and 4 where he's sat out. I could see the oversight of the first game. I could even see the oversight of failing to realize he didn't really play the first game and having him sit out one of the innings this game. But when you only have one guy on the bench and you sit him more than 1 inning when you only have 1 extra guy, that's pretty damn blatant. I'm a very calm person. I went and stood behind the dugout and was about to have some words with his coach. I don't want to do anything and have it backfire on my kid, but he's curious why he keeps sitting out. My plan is to call the coach tomorrow. I've calmed down a bit in trying to bring this to his attention without wanting to rip him a new one, but that will depend on how he responds.
So, I'm pretty pissed off about this. I just want my kid to have fun. There's no reason for any of this, really. I mean, this is T-ball. I can't believe I'm having to do something that a parent of maybe a high school baseball player would do.
Any thoughts?
