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Coaching Little League: Does Baseball Have The Most Obnoxious Coaches/Parents?

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by exmediahack, Jun 6, 2009.

  1. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    Just got finished last night coaching a LL baseball game -- my son is almost 7, it's machine pitch. This was the first tournament with umps, scoring, strikeouts, etc.

    The league does a great job with organization and trying to keep it fut but we ran into the Cobra Kai of coaches last night. This guy was Sensei and Coach Turner from the original Bad News Bears all wrapped up into one.

    They won handily, 11-4, but this guy was so obnoxious the whole time, yelling at the kids for missed grounders and what not. Their parents were vocally aggressive.

    In fact, most of the games we've played this year have been against Type-A dads who have sucked the joy out of the game. It just reminds of the years when I was in sports, dealing with those damn swimming and softball parents. Plus, two of *our* parents have their children on multiple teams, with us getting last priority. Each game, we are on the verge of forfeiting because of this.

    I've coached basketball and football before and I found those sports to not be as conducive to obnoxious parents and opposing coaches.

    Anyone else find baseball to be the epicenter for these Little League parents?!? Ugh.

    Thanks, all. This whole experience is making me want to just bring up a lawn chair next year and bring a six-pack to watch the games next year.
     
  2. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    I've seen my share of Type A coaches/parents as an umpire. I can imagine it gets worse for the coaches to deal with the parents of their darling little ones.
     
  3. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    This discussion begins and ends with soccer parents. Baseball parents aren't even close.
     
  4. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    It only begins and ends there because cheerleading is not a sport.
     
  5. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    I just wonder if it's because of all of the "downtime" in baseball, all the standing around.

    At least, when I've coached basketball, it's fairly simple. The kids run from end to end, the best kids score the baskets and total up the points at the end.

    Yet in this one, you have to deal with positions/rotations, the crappy kid getting 9 straight grounders hit to him, trying to limit the impact of the kids who aren't very good but still follow the rules and try to win.

    In the soccer/baseball parent angle, at least some baseball parents have actual experience playing the sport. I found most soccer parents just yell and have zero concept of strategy.

    I'm in a fairly cutt-throat business right now and I'm fine with that. Yet I just feel like I don't have the stomach to be a coach of seven-year-olds!
     
  6. Bruce Leroy

    Bruce Leroy Active Member

    That's why soccer parents are the worst. They cheer if Tommy or Susie kicks the ball really far and complain when someone passes it backward. I'll take baseball parents who bitch too much but know the game instead of soccer parents who don't know shit about the game and still yell the entire time.
     
  7. AMacIsaac

    AMacIsaac Guest

    Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you figure skating and gymnastics. Until you've dealt with skating moms, you haven't been to hell.
     
  8. Cadet

    Cadet Guest

    My vote is always for swimming. By the nature of the sport they're very into the minutiae of their child's every movement and because it's so individualized they don't have to bother with the concept of team.

    Soccer parents and fathers of offensive linemen are bad, but the only parent to ever make me consider calling the police was a swimming parent.
     
  9. Birdscribe

    Birdscribe Active Member

    Disagree completely.

    I've coached Little League and I currently coach a tournament-travel soccer team and the comparison isn't remotely close.

    Baseball parents are on another plane, largely because every dad PLAYED baseball at one time and many think they're either the reincarnation of (fill in major leaguer/Hall of Famer here) who was denied his shot by a jackass coach or they're the reincarnation of John McGraw by way of Earl Weaver and the current manager is an idiot for not playing his offspring at pitcher or shortstop.

    Perhaps it's my region. I've seen assclown soccer parents, to be sure. But they're so much fewer and farther between than assclown baseball parents, who take Type A behavior to another plane.

    What plane am I talking about?

    I've never been physically threatened by a soccer parent.
    I've never heard stories of soccer parents (in this country) disagreeing with an umpire's call, leaving the field and coming back with a handgun.
    I've never seen a soccer parent follow a referee to his car, threatening him all the way until he had to be restrained and pulled away by other parents.
    I've never heard of a soccer parent breaking the jaw of his kid's coach.

    These are all activities of baseball parents in my area.
     
  10. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    Pure bullshit.

    Soccer parents are amid a sport that isn't considered the AMERICAN pastime... the AMERICAN birthright.

    Baseball/softball parents are ... by far ... the worst I have encountered in 20 years in the biz.
     
  11. Huggy

    Huggy Well-Known Member

    Change baseball to hockey here and that's life in Canada.
     
  12. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    ... and the last few posts are why for next year, during Little League Season, I will have a new pre-game checklist...

    - Lawn chair
    - Thermos
    - Good book
     
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