Mom's A Big Help

I don't think anyone should be behind the backstop giving out advice !
If I was the ump I would have told her go sit in the stands and enjoy the game.

What a novel idea! Why don't the pro's use this technique to improve their offense?

I'll bet her kid is just soooo proud of his mom. I wonder if there would be a lawsuit if someone did that when her kid was on the mound.

Shut up and take a seat, Mom!

Would you have posted the scenerio if it had been a dad? Probably not.

I don't agree with what you saw, and it shouldn't matter WHO was doing it.

How about shut up and take a seat MOM or DAD.

No intention to make this sexist. It was a mom behind the screen so I called her a mom.

Not everything has to be an insult.

biggerpapi - I know you didn't mean it that way, but TPM has a good point IMO. I see dads doing that all of the time. I think it looks silly either way. We just don't have anyone posting about the 100's of dads doing that every weekend.

Sitting in the stands this summer watching 14 Yr.old Pony sectionals a mom next to me was giving her son batting advice when he was in the box. This boy played JV baseball this year. I asked her if she did this in high school and she said she did! I said my son would kill me (or my husband) if we ever shouted out anything like that. Parents are pretty amazingly stupid sometimes.

jbb,

I guess I've been away from the youth game too long. Are you telling me that parents regularly gun the pitcher and inform the batter as the pitch approaches?

That kind of nonsense might have sent the batters running for cover when they faced infidel_son's FB.

Last spring I was watching a HS tournament, the dad sitting on the bench gunning the player yelling out what the velo was on each pitch. He was asked to stop as it was perceived as cheating.
I have seen parents do all sorts of things behind the backstop, mostly dads. Anything from giving signs to yelling out velocity of each pitch for their pitcher. I have ssen in on the college level as well. We had a wife who sat behind the backstop regularly, giving instructions plus demeaning the umpire. It was very embarrassing and the coaches and the team hated it. Could be the reason why he didn't pitch in Omaha.
It may have been unusual to see a mom do this, but I have seen dads do it also, try to run the game from behind the backstop.
I agree with njbb, doesn't matter who did it, it's wrong and uncalled for.
Moms are more and more involved these days, some of it good, some of it not so good, same as dads, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, wives. Maybe I did take offense, but I most likely would have posted "parent" instead of mom, because this isn't just a mom thing.
I think what threw me the most was the reply, shut up and take a seat mom.
Boy how many times would I have loved to say that to some dads!

Gee whiz! Parents (and apparently spouses, too) will do anything to gain an advantage when junior's talent isn't enough. Pathetic!

Why not take this to the next level and throw out bogus velocities and wrong pitch info to counter the parent with the gun? It might confuse the heck out of the batter and mayhem could break out behind the backstop.

It might actually help the kids learn to tune out all the noise and focus on the task at hand.

I disagree with that last post. 2 wrongs don't don't make it right. Just because there's 1 idiot behind the screen doesn't mean you have to compound the situation by joining in. Thruout my son's career I have purposely sat away from the crowd just to avoid these people who mostly embaress their own sons with these displays. Why can't we let the game be played where it is supposed to be played, "Between The Lines"

quote:

Originally posted by biggerpapi:
We played a game with 10-11 year olds yesterday. One of the moms stood behind the backstop with her own radar gun.

When a new batter would get in the box, she'd tell them how fast the pitch was coming and where she thought the ball was going to go.

I asked the on deck batter if it helped him to know all of that. He kind of gave me that look like "uh, no."

This team also had a coach that would call a curve ball (10-11 year olds!!!) and loudly tell his pitcher to "snap it off."

We lost, but I feel pretty good this morning.

I can't imagine it helps anyone to know the radar gun speed the pitch is coming. To a little kid it's either a hittable speed or it isn't. To an older kid he was to follow the rotation of the ball regardless and can probably gauge the velocity.

You see more and more radar guns at games these days. Unless your a scout, I don't know what good it does anyone to know what a kid is throwing during a game. Especially an 11 yo.
Thanks to his parents this kid will probably develop a nervous twich by the time he's 14.

This is a very timely topic for me since recently I was at a game between two scout teams.
There were plenty of scouts (collegiate and pro) there with their guns and notebooks/cards/papers to make notes. Some had their colors flying full sail, others were incognito.

So, this dad makes kind of a big deal about getting his video camera and radar gun, (don't know what brand) all gathered up in a fussy fashion (so EVERBODY knew ) and positioned himself behind home plate. It was kind of embarrassing I thought for the dad. There he was gunning and recording the whole time his kid was pitching (one inning) pronouncing loudly to his younger son what the speed was. Like the scouts couldn't figure it out for themselves?

We all got to listen to it.

iheart,

I understand the oddity of your example, but there might have been a method in this guy's madness. I've been known to tape infidel_son and it might be nice to know when reviewing the tapes what the speed was for the pitch. Short of a lot of technological gadgetry, I can't think of another way to integrate the velocity simply than to have it on the audio track.

If the whole thing was just an attention grabber, well, that's different.

Infidel08-

Sorry, my mind has been on other things today
so, maybe I was not clear.

Yes, the whole thing was an attention grabber.
And, in my view was not cool.
But, what do I know, you know way more than me.

When a random dad starts shouting out a bunch of info about his kid with scouts present, it is not good form in my opinion.

Anyone filming with or without a helper, can quietly communicate the velo with a mere whisper,that translates quite nicely on video. In fact you may well record other opinions and reactions that you did not even want to hear THAT WERE LOUD.

Whatever works, I guess.

Some parents are truly crazy! My son phoned home last evening from college and wanted to know if I had spoken to one of his coaches recently. When I informed him that I had not spoken with anyone on the staff since the middle of August (scholarship $$ was not correct) he informed me that some parents were calling the coaching staff all of the time and this had to stop. Are these parents ever going to allow these young men to grow up?

Parent overkill

That stuff is alive and well in Phoenix. Last tournament there was a 14UAAA game going on after our game and we knew a couple of families on one of the teams. One Dad, goes about 20 feet behind the fence and was calling out pitch location to his son based on where the catcher set up. Didn't seem to help. The kid went 0 for 2 when we were there.

By the way, the kid on the mound had very little control. Or maybe he had great control and just threw the opposite of what the Dad was calling. We felt pretty embarassed for the kid batting. You could tell he didn't care for the advice.

quote:

Originally posted by kbat2012:
plug the airphone into the helmet of the batter.

Maybe that's what this guy was doing:

I think this will be the next big thing in little league. Moms and Dads can just send their thoughts to the kids on how fast that ball is coming!


http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1841108,00.html

We had a catchers parent stand behind the backs top and coach the catcher on each pitch as well as tey to explain to the catcher why umpire called that pitch that way. When you son is pitching and this parent is telling catcher from behind the ump to "frame up now" you can guess where the game goes.

My kid and I used to do something that was really just as bad as all of this when he played 13U ball. That's about when the real curve balls started showing up, and the coaches would sit on the bucket and send the signals into the cathers. (Most of you know what's coming next). It would usually take all of about 3 batters to pick up the curve ball signs if you had a clear view of the coach, who was by design opposite of us parents - so you usually had a perfect view. When my son was in the box and I saw the curve sign all I had to do was say anything like "come on Johnny", or whatever. Otherwise, I kept my mouth shut. When he heard my voice, he knew to sit on the off-speed.

We worked this out one day at the kitchen table before a tournament, and we thought it worked really well. Mom rolled her eyes in disgust, but we were pretty proud of ourselves. But the funny thing was that before long, my son started noticing that curve balls usually showed up on certain counts, and that he really didn't want to be listening for my voice while he was in the box. So he told me to quit doing it, and we realized he never had any problems hitting curves on pitcher's counts anyway.

Apart from our little experiment with sign-stealing, my kid has never paid attention to me during a game or even looked at me for approval after a play - he's just always been that way. Even in the early years when I was coaching him. And he's always been one heck of a competetive ball player - still is and still plays.

My point is that none of the outside-the-fence stuff makes a difference for the kids who can really play the game. The ones that need it don't ever seem to compete in the tough games, and always end up getting weeded out. But those over-zealous Mom's and Dad's are fun to watch, because you just know where things are headed if they don't stop pushing long enough to find out if the kid's really got a knack for it. Sooner or later, you'll run into them at the mall and when you ask about their kid they'll say somthing like, "yeah, he's really more into the French Horn...he's REALLY been kicking butt in band...and that coach was AWEFUL...never really gave him a chance..."

TPM

I do not tke the post to be sexist, just simple the telling of facts --IT WAS A MOM !!!


Chill lady