Interesting discussion. Especially “daddy ball”.
Like most of you, we played on a few daddy ball teams. I bet some of you were daddy ball coaches. On one team the coach’s son (Terrible fielder, ok hitter) played SS and batted 3rd the entire year when 3/4 the team could have played a better SS and half were better hitters. The other team the son played 3rd, batted 5th, and pitched – decent hitter, poor fielder, horrible pitcher. In both cases the other kids moved up and down the order, changed positions, or sat on the bench based on recent performance – but the coaches kids stuck to their spots like granite.
These were higher level tournament teams and I’m sure it cost us more than a few games. I heard a lot of complaining from other parents about it. But you know what? I had absolutely no problem with it. For two reasons:
First – They were great guys and were super passionate about baseball.
Second – They put a TON of time in these teams. Setting schedules (we played around 75 games/yr), organizing and running practices, running try-outs and telling kids (and parents) they didn’t make the team, keeping stats, collecting money and paying bills for equipment, uniforms, and tournament fees, giving kids rides as needed, dealing with leagues and tournament directors, setting line-ups and pitching rotations, dealing with sh*t from parents, and on, and on, and on. Sure, there were some parents that helped out with practices and other stuff, but 90% fell on the coaches shoulders. Mostly, parents showed up and watched the game.
So if one small benefit of going through all this is that their son got to play his favorite position, and got a few more AB’s than other kids during a season, that was fine with me. When I mentioned my thoughts to the parents who were complaining, the complaining stopped pretty quickly.
I want to thank all the unpaid “daddy” coaches for what they do!