@HSDad22 posted:Was at a 15u PG tourney this past weekend and the behavior of the two teams that played before us was an embarrassment to baseball. Chirping, bat flipping on bases loaded walks, parent being tossed for yelling the "Umpires Suck" out loud, pitchers and or batters complaining about strike/ball counts after nearly every pitch. (all day long the pitch to righties two balls off the plate has been a strike, somehow the hitters can't grasp that and the pitchers expect 4 or 5 off the plate too) Finally a coach tries to discipline his team for their behavior (really just a gesture to make it look like he was doing something) and a mother in the stands flips out because their kid got yelled at to get back in the dugout, and words go back and forth between coach and parent in front of everyone. Team that lost gives a fake sarcastic salute to other team, organized by the coaches, then says it was really for the Umpires.
It's sad, and the thing is that everyone has seen those contracts you sign to join a team, about behavior and consequences, basically that you can be removed from the team without compensation, etc. As if that would actually happen. And how about those team mission statements on the team websites all about building respectful young men, blah blah blah...
The umpires had words with the PG sponsors at the end of the game, but If PG wanted to take things seriously they would ban the two teams from PG events for the rest of the year.
And to be clear, the umpires did a pretty good job all tourney.
Of course not every kid acted like a moron, but overall and when acting as a group, there weren't too many of those kids. It really painted a picture of what the two programs were like. These programs are not doing the kids any favors.
In my role as Volunteer Asst Coach at a Texas JuCo I see a lot of HS games and a lot of local travel ball tournaments. I must say that the above post is an accurate description of what I see a lot. It’s all very disheartening.