Baseball Season is upon us. I get it, I have three kids playing on 4 different teams…I’m all up in this baseball fever.  

As I sit here (literally) at my son’s little league game, I’m finding more and more reasons to send out this open letter.  You see, there seems to be an etiquette that needs to be addressed or else all hell could break loose. Anarchy at the baseball field is frowned upon, and I’m here to shed some light on the faux pas that you may or may not be violating at this very moment.

1. Standing in front of people is not okay.  I get it, your son is pitching and you need to be there at the fence to analyze his technique loudly. You see me here? Yeah, I’ve worked all day and I’m pretty psyched to be chilling in this canvas chair.  My lack of standing may throw a kink in your intense baseball-dad thing, but you have got to stop standing in front of me.  I’m watching my kid just like you, just not so intently.  

2. Clapping and cheering loudly over the other team’s mistakes.  Just because they are the other team, doesn’t mean they are the enemy.  These are kids just like yours, and your maniacal screeching over my kid’s error is really making me want to go mama-bear on you. Calm the eff down, dude.

3. If you don’t know the rules of baseball, don’t yell at the coaches/umps/players about baseball things. Save your yelling for important stuff, like the Kardashians, or the rising price of gas.

4.  Don’t try to psyche the other kids out.  Saying stuff like “this kid has nothing” or “he’s struggling, you can hit off him”. No Bueno, muchacho.  Don’t be an asshole.  

5. Yelling stuff that makes no sense.  I have heard it all: ducks on the pond, just throw strikes, etc. all dumb, pointless banter taking up my ear space. I’m trying to zone out here, and pretend that I’m sitting on a beach somewhere, and that this diet coke is a fruity drink with an umbrella…you are making it impossible to imagine such a scenario with your ridiculous sayings.

6. Talking about how good your kid is VS the rest of the team. Ok dude, we all think our kids are awesome. It is a big fault in our generation’s parenting style. There is no need to brag about how amaze-balls your kid did at the batting cages. I highly doubt that he hit a home run off the “major league” speed machine, so how about you just stop…mmmmm kay?

7.  Show up late all the time.   Hey you… Yeah I work too.  I get the stink eye from my co workers when I duck out ten minutes early too.  Our kids have a commitment to each other though, and when you roll in in the second inning expecting your kid to not sit on the bench…you cray.  

8.  Let your younger kids terrorize the entire dugout, and the parents watching the game. Please don’t pack the following items for them to use in their reign of terror: bubbles, noisy toys, remote control cars, candy to taunt the other kids with,  and flying objects in which they have no control of, which often fly at people while you are not watching your kid.  Just be smart.

9. Go behind the coach’s back and yell instructions to your kid that are in stark defiance of the coach’s teachings.  Do you see a theme here? Don’t be an asshole. Those coaches are out there working their butts off trying to make our kids better players. Don’t confuse your kid…just don’t be a jerk.

10. Don’t bring ice cream for just your kid.  My kid is going to look at me like fail-mom, and I don’t need that kind of stress in my life bro.  If you can’t afford it for the whole team, and all the grabby little siblings, then do us all a favor and don’t bring it at all.  You don’t look like a cool dad/mom, you just look like you are trying to make the rest of us look bad.

Ok, so clearly, I’ve had a lot of time to think this list through.  The general theme here is obvious. If you aren’t an asshole, your kids have less of a likelihood to grow up to be more assholes.  Let’s do the world a solid here, and try not to mess up the next generation too badly, huh?

 

About the author: Meg Jones is a freelance writer and blogger at www.megjoneswriter.wordpress.com. You can find her in Twitter at twitter.com/mjones609. She spends her days trying to be super mom but usually failing and just being okay-mom.

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