Baseball/Softball Summer Wrap Up - 4 forgettable encounters and one great 1

An old friend (and let me stress the old part) once told me, "Tony, if your team wins with class and loses with dignity, that means you got the rest figured out.  If you don't, you were either raised wrong or you got some unfinished athletic business and you're using someone else to get you there!!!"

This blog highlights 4 encounters I had this Summer that I'd rather forget, but each comes back to what my old friend said...and it also features one encounter that I will choose to always remember.

Encounter #1: I'm coaching in a boys baseball game and the best team (by far) is playing right after us.  They pulled off the Triple Crown of prickhood in 15 minutes flat.  They laughed at one of the players of our opponent's who struck out looking, they talked smack about being bored playing teams like ours and the team they were about to play and last but not least they barged into our dugout before we were even close to ready to vacate.

Encounter #2: While playing a game against a notorious team from south of the MN river...the other coach yelled so loud at his team and for so long that the other 3 fields stopped play to make sure lives weren't being sacrificed.  In the same game, the same coach on 4 different occasions pulled 4 different kids for making errors (total class, dude). But his all time low light came after we swept them for the season, he said "I wouldn't take one of their players over any of his 12...." right to my face in front of like 5 of my kids and parents.  Apparently this guy had given our team some thought.

Encounter #3: This is the true prize.  While coaching my daughter's K-2 softball team...a friend observed the other team's coach encouraging his girls' rolling the ball to first base rather than the much more difficult approach of throwing it!  This technique is offensive and sexist.  No coach would ever teach a group of boys to do the same in order to win (I know, I coached K-2 boys for years and never saw this approach once). To add insult to injury, this team had a ground ball hit to their best player at Pitcher (she clearly knew how to throw it) who then rolled it to their second best person at 1st base (who clearly knew how to catch) for their team's only put out of the night.  To which the coach yelled, "Nice Play.....that's how you do it!"  To which I almost collapsed.

Encounter #4: Last night, my daughter's team is playing a playoff softball game (note: I was not there).  Olivia's team is winning handily 14-2 to a completely overmatched team.  Late in the game a girl on her team gets injured pretty badly.  Through free substitution, another girl was placed in the game.  What the head coach failed to realize was that the girl who was sent in had already played her minimum number of innings in the infield....the other coach noticed and immediately called our team on it and we were forced to forfeit the game.  Read future blogs about this one....I think the title will be "C'mon get a clue moments".  Sidebar: My daughter gets in the car, turns to my wife and says, "I'm so glad Dad wasn't here....he would have FREAKED!!!!"  I honestly wouldn't have freaked...the rule is pretty clear on the substitutions...the assistant coach who innocently sent the girl out there didn't know...he felt awful. I probably would've mustered up a nice little barb for the lady who caught it, like "Do you watch golf tournaments and call the PGA when you see an infraction???"

Good One: This Summer, we had the good fortune of playing a team from Winona, MN called Goodview Sandlot.  With special emphasis on the word Sandlot.  This team had nicknames for all their kids...they had tall kids, short kids, fat kids, fast kids, white kids and even a black kid.  For all their differences they had one thing in common - they loved baseball.  Their coach fostered a love for the game amongst their kids - the rest took care of itself.  Never once did he raise his voice, never once did he shout instruction to his players in the batters box or scream plays or give signals...he just let them play ball (note: the coach was a ripe 25 years old). We lost to them 3-1...had bases juiced in the bottom of the 6th and they brought in their Scotty Smalls to end it...and they did.