Why do parents act as they do?

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Like Coach May stated, “If your good enough you will move on. If you’re not you won’t. But sooner or later everyone will hang them up no matter how good you are. What you can take with you the rest of your life that you have learned from the game will be way more important than anything you do on the field “. I don’t think anything sums it up any better than that.

Agreed. My son has to do a speech tomorrow in his college class about his most special artifact. He is taking his USSA championship ring. However, he said that the ring is not important - it's the friends he has made through baseball that are much more important than any ring, any bat, any glove.

Made me tear up!

That's what we want the boys to get out of baseball, in spite of all the hand wringing we do because we love them so MUCH!

And yes, I like to sit away too. Too much chatter from families and girlfriends and girlfriend wannnabes!

Originally posted by YoungGunDad:
"I finally learned after my son's sophomore year in HS to sit by myself out in right field up on the hill and smoke my wonderful cigar. All by myself!

There I can mutter and grumble all I want without anyone hearing me or making faces at me! LOL"

I thought I was paddling that canoe all by myself. Got to sit far enough away so they can't hear ya, then you have to learn to grumble without moving your lips, so people don't think your talking to yourself and need a whole team of psychiatrists !!!!!!

This thread made me think of something. When son #1 & #2 struggle it hurts me. It hurts me because I know it bothers them and they are so into the game. When son #3 struggles it doesn't bother me at all because it doesn't bother him. He could K 3 times in a row in a game and he's ready to get a snowcone and head to a friends house.

I stand at games, I never sit. I am usually down the line somewhere. If a parent comes over by me I usually don't mind, they are there for the same reason I am.
With the right person I enjoy discussing the game as it is being played.

It is truly embarrassing for me to think of some of the foolish things I blurted out at my son's games sometimes. I finally matured a little and quit worrying after his soph. year in high school. He was so much happier while playing, and I really think he improved. I came to realize that although he wasn't one of those elitely gifted pitchers, he had a quiet, steely competitive streak, and is very confident in his ability. As far as good parents go, I've never, in about six years heard Coach May say anything to his son during a ballgame. That is a record to be proud of Coach!!

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Originally posted by observer44:
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Originally posted by TPM:
Funny thing, as son got older and the stakes got higher, there was actually LESS anxiety going on with us because we understood that the only person who could control what was going on was our player.

Would concur TPM...

In the last few years have had the opportunity to sit and watch the ball games of a score of MLB players sons...

Sitting in the stands wathcing ball games, taking with former MLB all stars and World Series winners watching their kids play was an enlightening experience. Both fathers and mothers, while obvioulsy caring, had far less anxiety/drama, or emotional reactions than the "normal" parents on the up or the down side. They were also a great deal more realistic and were not prone to tell everyone how great their kids were. IMO, knowing what they had seen of the top levels, to a person saw the thing as a small part of a long journey to be taken in stride, step by step. No big win's, no big losses, but simply always years of work to be done, levels to be climbed. Draft picks, recognition...while it was nice didn't really matter a whole bunch as the goal was simply to improve, move up, and get a shot at the next level.

44
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Yes as parents WE have less anxiety but talk to the baseball wives!!!!!

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most of our young men play and work hard because they have passion for the game and a inner drive that propels them to drive themselves hard to be the best player they can be. No parent can push that drive it is an internal love and passion that is God given in my opinion.

I do not want to talk during a baseball game. I want to watch all the things that most people will not notice. I want to watch all the kids not just mine. I want to enjoy the game because I know all to quickly it will be over. And I dont want to hear what most people have to say at a baseball game. It should be fun. It should be positive. And it is a game. The only time I would ever be upset with my son is if he did not hustle or made a bone head mistake because he was not focused. Other than that there is nothing to me more enjoyable than watching your kid do something they love to do. Alot of parents never get to do that

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Originally posted by Lefty34:
I do not want to talk during a baseball game. I want to watch all the things that most people will not notice. I want to watch all the kids not just mine. I want to enjoy the game because I know all to quickly it will be over. And I dont want to hear what most people have to say at a baseball game. It should be fun. It should be positive. And it is a game. The only time I would ever be upset with my son is if he did not hustle or made a bone head mistake because he was not focused. Other than that there is nothing to me more enjoyable than watching your kid do something they love to do. Alot of parents never get to do that

Unfortunately, but realistically, its only a tiny percentage of folks watching a ball game their child is playing in who are as interested in watching all the kids, have something intelligent to say that everyone else would be interested in, and understand that its just a game and should be fun. There’s just no way a group of people can be thrown together for a function like that and have it be like a mass at church.

Heck, when my boy played and my wife would go to a game, it hardly ever failed that she and I didn’t have some kind of “words”. She’d get out the novel she was reading and sit there completely absorbed until it was our boy’s time to perform. She’d watch what he’d do, then it was right back to the book. When she wasn’t reading, she’d be in some kind of conversation about a million things other than the game at hand, and both of those things really made me angry.

But all that was really happening, was that it wasn’t a ball game to her as much as it was a chance to meet with some friends she didn’t get to see other than at the games, or the chance to just read without worring about the BS at work, and her nutsy family driving her even more nutsy.

I think that’s pretty much the case for most folks, and for the ones who do watch intently and pay attention to every minor detail, they’re usually so intense, not too many folks want to be around them either.

I suppose that some of us forget that although the seats in a ball park generally all look alike, the butts that sit in them are all very different.

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Originally posted by jerseydad:

Let your boys be boys, try to enjoy every minute while you still have them with you. Before you know it, when you look up they will have become a man on you. (Seemingly overnight)

Boy, jerseydad, your statement above is powerful and deep, and I for one wish I had someone back when younggun was around 12yrs old slap me upside the head with that truth!

I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out if younggun had just been content playing on the park & rec teams, maybe making JV or not, and if he made the high school team, wonderful. Hindsight, I wouldn't take anything in the world for his competitiveness or dream in always wanting to play better competition. But where did the time go? I mean, seriously?

He's been home from school for the Labor Day weekend since friday night and Ive seen him maybe a total of 5 minutes. arghhhh.

The funny thing about going crazy watching a child play sports is that we, the parents, are the furthest thing from their minds. And, if not, we should be. While it is nice for a kid to look out and see a parent in the stands, he should care less about our stress level. When I played, many moons ago, I never thought of my parents during the game, except when my mother was ringing the cow bell she carried around one summer. In later years it was nice to realize that my father had a sense of pride about his son's sports accomplishments.
It is definitely a one way street. As parents we worry about our child's feeling, and ego and future. As a player they worry about beating the opponent.

This just about sums it up don't you think...

Little Leaguer Goes Off on Dad

Yep.