Author’s Note: This is essay is mostly true. Names have been changed to conceal identities of the baseball league and the psychopathic coach who is still teaching baseball to young people today.
Dear Madam:
You are being summoned to appear in front of Little League Baseball Commission on Monday, June 7 at 7:00 p.m. You will have the opportunity to address a formal written complaint that has been issued against you for the official removal of you and your daughter from the Little League.
Best Regards,
Little League Baseball Commissioner
What did I do that was so awful that my daughter and I will be banned from Little League? It’s not like I was hocking steroids to five-year-old prodigy baseball players; or, paying off seven-year-olds to throw a game or two. My crime came out of concern for my three-year-old daughter, who was playing on a t-ball team for the first time. I asked her coach to consider not giving a game ball trophy for the “best performing player” after the end of each game.
He didn’t take my request too well and filed a petition for formal sanctions against me.
Here is how it all started:
Email 1 (Coach to Entire Team)
The Blue Birds have a $10 team fee. This is used to purchase game ball trophies for the players. Players will receive a game ball trophy to hold the game after a game of exceptional play. EVERY PLAYER WILL RECEIVE ONE BEFORE THE SEASON IS OVER. (The coach’s capitalization).
At this age, there is a little whining and wanking [sic] at times when everybody doesn't get one after the game. This is normal and not a big deal. In order for the players to have a sense of pride and achievement, using the rewards system, they must be earned.
DO NOT TELL YOUR CHILD, OR ANNOUNCE IN FRONT OF THE TEAM, "EVERYONE WILL EVENTUALLY GET ONE." (The coach’s capitalization)
I promise your child will not be scarred for life. The little ones who get a little upset when they don't receive the award are the ones - speaking in terms of personal growth - that 'puff up' the most and carry the achievement and pride with them that will affect every other part of their existence.
All players will receive a participation trophy from the league at the end of the season.
Regards,
Coach
Email 2 (Me to the Coach)
Dear Coach:
I am not sure that I will be taking my daughter to practice tonight because I am completely opposed to the game ball trophy idea. I hope that you would reconsider your plan, or at very least, have parents vote on it.
The concept of rewarding individual three-year-old players for "exceptional play" goes against the philosophy and mission of the t-ball league. In our kids' division, the league does not keep score, record stats, or have play-offs. The concept is to remove the competitive elements of the game that can be distracting and perhaps discouraging to young players who are just learning the game. At this age, the emphasis should be learning the basics of the game, learning to how follow directions, and being a part of team. Recognizing the best player of the game introduces a concept that three-year-olds don't need to know right now. They will eventually learn those lessons about winning and losing and that not all players are equally gifted.
The larger concept of "pride and achievement" is something that can be accomplished simply by being part of a team. At this age, getting the kids to stay on the field, go roughly where they should be, and keeping their eye on the ball so they don't get hit in the face are enormous accomplishments. All attention should be placed on the team effort. Knowing how to be a team player is a skill that they will carry with them forever.
I considered posting this to the Yahoo group, but thought it would be best to let you know our feelings on this issue first. I am trying to get my daughter on another team, but most of them seem to be full. I would like for her to play this season. In all fairness, please have the parents vote. If the majority wants the game ball trophy, we will go along with it.
Sincerely,
GMD
Email 3 (Coach to Me)
GMD,
I've been over and over this email and I can't even get in the same ballpark with your views. Although you did go to great ends to include many 'red flag' words, you have truthfully still only prostituted sentence fragments and phrases from the league and even shoehorned in a quote or two from me, in an attempt to arrive closer to your own personal agenda. Your logic and conclusions are flawed by the very presentation of their design and, very early on, are complete departures from the concept of team.
What you have created is a crusade/cause. By definition, the purpose of which is to garner support for the few, in order to meet a special need. Do you have a special need? I feel confident that any coach in the jr. t-ball program would not hesitate to accommodate any child, should a specific need be addressed (in the context of the individual/child, specifically, rather than attacking a team and its coaches, having no real information on either.) Should you choose to continue to search for a team that will meet your needs of personal control and mediocrity, be prepared for a long journey, as they don't exist within our organization?
Your judgment of this team, my family, and subsequent threats to stir up the team if your needs are not met are unconscionable and not well-received. I've forwarded your original email, this response and some additional comments to the league for them to action.
Regards,
Coach
Email 4 (Coach to Little League Baseball League)
Attn: League Director:
I ask and require that GMD and her daughter are removed from my team. In consideration of other coaches and families in the league, it's my personal opinion that additional sanctions be applied, requiring them to wait a season or so to play ball.
The damn shame of it is: you guys will cover the league, I'll take care of my team, she'll do whatever she's doing and the only one suffering is her daughter.
After her questioning the coach's ethics and judgments while quoting the league’s mission statement with the threat/ultimatum of mutinying the team to get what she wanted....all this over a really nothing deal, she doesn't really know about.
Regards,
Coach
So that is how I landed in front of the Little League Baseball Commission. Just as I side note, I must confess this not the first time that the phrase “need for personal control” has been used when describing me. I have a hate email somewhere from a classmate in library school who wrote that exact comment in a peer review for a group project on the New York Public Library. In that case, the comment probably fit. The group got an A on the project, but I got a B for not working well with others. Regardless of past tendencies for control, I felt confident that I was seeking domination. My complaint came out of concern for all the children on the team, and more to the point, I was simply right. So, I prepared for the biggest fight the Little Baseball Commission has ever fought.
I was thorough in my preparations:
· I compiled all e-mails to and from the coach.
· I printed out and highlight key points of the league’s mission statement.
· I googled “game ball” and “parent complaints.” Either no one has had the courage to battle this issue publicly, or I simply don’t understand the etiquette of being a sports parent – don’t question the coach.
· I found the video of my daughter scoring seven goals in one soccer game to prove two things. First my child did not have a any special needs (which the coach implied, assuming the I was more concerned about child not earning the game ball trophy opposed to caring about emotional growth). Second, I wanted to show that my daughter was athletically gifted and would have probably been first or second player to get the game ball. But, I didn’t want to appear overbearing or crazy.
· Next I contacted Katie, Laura, and Amy (moms from son’s old baseball team) to see if they could provide character references for me to show that I have been model a sports parent on all of my son’s baseball teams.
· Next I wrote a few brief anecdotes about our past baseball experiences with our oldest child and to show that I wasn’t opposed to practice of giving game balls at the age of eight, he earned his game ball for being hit with a ball twice in one game – an awkward moment because the crowd wasn’t sure if they should clap for the child who was either too physically slow or too mentality dimwitted to move before he got hit.
· I found a few quotes about the benefits of participant trophies. Actually, there hundreds of articles about the opposition to participation trophies, which is a topic for another day. After watching my four-year-old walk around with his first soccer trophy with so sense of pride and accomplishment. I will never be part of the anti-trophy brigade that deprives preschoolers of their sparkling, space consuming, and dust attracting awards.
Finally, the day of my hearing I arrived. I had my documentation and a spiffy suit with a stylish matching pair of pumps picked out. Then, I got the call.
“We have moved your daughter to another team. You do not need to appear tonight,” said the secretary, in a tone of youthful disinterestedness.
“But m’am, I would like to come present about the ills of game ball trophies and the harmful effects on players under the age of six,” said I.
“No thank you. Your duaghter has been placed another team. The commission considers this matter closed,” she said and quickly hung up the phone before I could rebuttal.
So, I sent the commissioner an email that summarized my case against game ball trophies in roughly 2,300 words. Since emails get can be easily deleted. I also mailed a 20 page document called “Game Ball Trophies: Do They Send the Right Message to Our Children?”
I never got a response.
As it turns out about 4 weeks into the season, the coach of my daughter’s new team was removed for calling another parent a fat-ass. The target of her insult then became the coach for the remainder of the very long season.
So during my daughter’s first season of t-ball (which now at the age of seven, she doesn’t remember at all), she was nearly banned from team; had three different head coaches; ate many snacks after games; scored lots of runs; and, during one particular game left third base because she had to pee and couldn’t hold it until she got to home base. Winning isn’t everything when you are three. Sometimes peeing is more important than scoring.
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