Audio By Carbonatix
Over on a homepage filled with dread about the new Iran peace deal, I have a piece about recreational baseball, the kind sponsored in my area by local businesses with Irish and Italian names attached to their trade or custom, the one that takes all comers and creates six teams out of a single town’s children.
I love it. This has become my getaway from all other concerns. The stands are a place of meditation, for enjoying the summer breeze, and most of all for the sound of a ball popping into a leather glove.
However, there are the other moms and dads, and I have some thoughts about etiquette:
- Parents should cheer good play. Especially for ten and under. If the ball is fielded cleanly and snapped to first for an out, cheer and applaud. It’s okay to do this for the opposing team, too. “Good job, boys.”
- Parents should not cheer — and especially not stand and yell crazily — for mere errors that benefit your kid’s teams, or your kid. This isn’t the Major Leagues where fans can shout lustily for the outcome of a play, which is either in your team’s favor or not. These are kids. And many of them are making heroic-for-their-age efforts and — for lack of experience — coming up just short. An outfielder that brilliantly tracks down a line drive, gets it to land in his glove, but fails to squeeze it — leading to a drop — should inspire silent winces of sympathy for the outfielder, not barbaric yawps from the peanut gallery.
- Your input is not needed after every single pitch. Seriously, there’s an alarming number of parents who react by shouting full sentences after every single pitch they watch. “Keep your shoulder up, Tommy.” Pitch, “Head up, Tommy.” Pitch, “Back of the Box, Tommy.” Pitch, “Good cut, Tommy!” Tommy is going to be teased in the dugout on your behalf, dad. Stop.
- Limit your own commentary on your kid to before and after his at bat. “Let’s go!” before, and “Way to hang in there,” to close are great.
- Do not yell about the deficiencies you perceive in opposing players. Because a) this can genuinely provoke a fight among parents in the stands; b) it’s gauche beyond words for beer-bellied, middle-aged men with sciatica to comment on nine-year-olds; and c) the kids can hear you.
- Remember that these kids can hear you — everything you say.
