Anyone have some polite but effective way to shut down a parent (dad of course) that feels the need to chirp instructions to every player throughout a game? Moving to another section is not an option in this exercise
“You’re dropping you hands”
”shorten that swing”
”you’re early, wait on it”
”get down the mound”
on and on.
I wouldn’t have a problem being the dad that stands up and says “hey, anyone else want to give them last second advice on top of (parent X)” but might be a bad idea. 😁
Replies sorted oldest to newest
This is HS for my situation (which is more absurd) but definitely applies to youth baseball even more so.
Some parents do that because they just need to hear themselves talk. Others think they are actually helping. A dad on my son’s HS team would call the player name if he saw they weren’t listening to him. Same year as my son so we had to deal with it for 4 years. I finally pulled him aside and told him we work on different things and he needed to stop instructing my son. Other dads were a littler rougher and would yell STFU up to him.
I finished noticed it freshman year. I asked my son about it and he said it didn’t bother him. He just ignored him. I told him not to listen to any parents and he should only be listening to the coaches.
You should hear what the kids mutter under their breath while at bat - talk about taking your focus away!
I don't miss that part of youth baseball. I remember one local player that would walk up to home plate, turn and look/listen to his Dad's hitting instructions in the stands. The kid was a switch hitter, and a pretty good one. His Dad would instruct his son from the stands which side of the plate to hit from. This went on for years. It was bizarre.
Thankfully, when the son got to high school he no longer needed his Dad's guidance on which side of the plate to hit from. But, that didn't stop him from chirping other things when he was at bat or in the field.
We had a dad on a 12u team who - until we banned him - would give his kid verbal signs to bunt, hit, or take from the stands. Poor kid. After a few games he had to tell us why he kept missing the signs we gave him. Highly annoying to say the least! The guy was a real piece for work. A few years later his older kid lost his starting job on the HS JV basketball team. Dad would sit in the opponents' section and heckle his son's team and coach. Needless to say the kid's hoops career didn't last very long. Fortunately, he was a very good baseball player and dad kept his mouth shut when he played.
At the hs level it usually reveals the comp level of the player. My experience has been that the higher the player goes, the quieter the parents.
The most effective way I have seen a mouthy parent shut down happened in the finals of the NJCAA Region 2 Tournament in 2019. Our team was getting pounded by 2 of the opposing teams hitters that we could not get out. Every time they came up to bat runners were on base. And every time they delivered. After 3 times thru the order (it was a high scoring 9 inning game) one dad started complaining loudly, “why are we still pitching to those 2 guys?!? Why? How many times do they have to hurt us before we learn?!? Who is calling the pitches?!? This is beyond stupid!!”
The father of our PC was a huge guy. A mountain of a man. He slowly walked over to the mouthy dad in between innings and said, “How would you like it if I showed up at your son’s place of work and started mouthing off about how bad he was at doing his job? You wouldn’t like that, would you? Well my son is the PC of this team and he is the one calling pitches. And I don’t like listening to you criticize my son while he is at work. So FUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUI!!!!!” The mouthy dad slumped down in his chair and didn’t say another word. I laughed for the rest of the game, which we won 12-11 on a walk-off grand slam with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th.
With most teams we've been a part of, be it TB, rec, or HS, the coach would not put up with this. It would be either STFU or take your kid and go home.
I coached a competitive, top talent 13u to 16u travel team I put together. All but one player (he chose college basketball) went on to play college ball at some level.
We were competent coaches with college playing (two pro) backgrounds. We had no tolerance for parents coaching players from the sidelines or speaking out against our players, umpires or the opposition. After 13u I didn’t invite three players back. One was for comments a player made about his teammates. Another was a mother harassing me about her son’s position. Another was for twice pitching for a CYO team in the morning when I told him he was scheduled to pitch for us that afternoon.
I replaced three players for 14u. I add three prominently pitchers for 16u.
