Fields of Screams: 2017 youth baseball/softball thread

Welp ... the overzealous parent who lives vicariously through her daughter did what many thought she would. Yesterday she kept trying to tell the 2 pitchers we have that their arms are sore and that I need to take it easy on them, at which point I had to step in and kindly tell her to back off. First of all, neither of my 2 pitchers throw enough pitches, or even hard enough, to have sore arms. On top of which, windmill pitching is safe on softball arms and shoulders, as opposed to the violence on arms and shoulders that comes from pitching a baseball.

I did, reluctantly, ask this parent to take a minor role helping pitchers warm up before practice but her overzealousness then carries over into practice when she keeps harping on her daughter in the field and at the plate. In the field the daughter constantly tells her mom to be quiet, and at the plate, between pitches, the daughter turns around to tell her mom to be quiet or she's going to slug her with the bat. She's a sweet girl and would never do that but she's a sweet 12-year-old girl -- and good 3-sport athlete -- who constantly feels embarrassed by her mom's overzealousness because "I played 4 years on varsity so I know." It's too fucking much.

I'd had enough after yesterday's practice and sent this email to all the parents:

Hi, All,

We have a great group of girls who are having fun on our family-like team and all of us are looking forward to a productive season. As the head coach I need to make sure the team receives a single voice from the top down, as mixed messages by too many cooks in the kitchen will cause confusion and uncertainty and far too many questions. The assistant coaches this season are XX, XX, and XX. Any concerns or questions should go through myself or those 3, who will pass them onto me. We have put in a lot of time since the end of last season and have a good grasp on the team. Next practice is at 6 Tuesday. We might have a scrimmage against another team Wednesday. We'll have an hourlong practice Friday night at 6. I know XX is still on the DL but we'd love to have her come and watch practices this week as we gear up for Saturday's Opening Games.

See you Tuesday,
Songbird

I received this response today:

I have been helping the team out by coaching the pitchers, as well as working with the infielders and this is pretty clear that you don't want my help. Songbird, you yourself asked me to work with the pitchers and they have improved because of my help. You have been leaving me out of the coaching part and arguing with me when I am concerned about the pitchers arms and welfare. (Daughter) and I will no longer be playing. We are done.

The junior high and varsity coaches are going to love this one.

 

As it seems it was inevitable, better now than later ...

 

1, She's a good player with an excellent attitude ... and a great arm, and she's my shortstop when the other shortstop isn't pitching.

2, I hope the mother sees the egregiousness of her ways and realizes she's only hurting her daughter and thinks about it and decides to act like a grownup and let her play.

 

I'd watch it with the blanket statement that windmill pitching places no strain on pitching arms.
And I'd really watch it with the statement that your pitchers "haven't thrown enough pitches" or "hard enough" to have sore arms.
You ain't throwing the pitches. You don't get to decide whether the pitchers' arms hurt or not.

The pitchers probably have to learn the difference between fatigue-soreness and structural pain, but if it ain't your arm, you don't get to decide that it doesn't hurt.

 

I am pretty in tune with the players' needs, and I give them as much time out as they need whenever they say ask to take a break, pitchers included.

They also know to ice their arms at home if they feel fatigued. They're not throwing many pitches, and they're not throwing hard. Dusty Baker I am not.

 

Assuming this is an actual quote, it's awfully telling. Hun, you never were playing.

 

Maybe you guys will get to play tourneys at Cedar Point!

Cedar Point building youth-sports complex, hopes to become major player in sports travel game

 

Yeah, that was the most eye-rollingest sentence in the email.

I'll also walk back part of the what I said about windmilling and injuries, as no sports are injury-proof, even with proper technique, as studies are starting to show.

What I was getting at is that my players are the first ones to tell me when they're tired, or done pitching for the day, and I give them as much time as they need.

 

That will do very well. They have the hotels and entertainment to book weeklong "bring the whole family!" trips.

 

Manchester Vermont is becoming the same way. They're going after the 100-team soccer and lacrosse tournaments and have a bunch of new high-end hotels to house them.

 

Yeah, I was probably a bit more harsh than I needed to be, but over the years I've covered a bunch of meathead varsity softball coaches who adopted the Vince Lombardi attitude and swore pitchers could handle virtually unlimited workloads. I've covered teams on which one pitcher threw every single pitch all season (sometimes 3 or 4 seasons), then the coach could never figure out why the pitchers had great freshman and sophomore seasons and steadily declined thereafter. Hmmmmm.

Then there's the extra fun of the varsity softball coach who runs the program to develop a stud pitcher every other year. They throw every single pitch on the varsity and JV teams.
So the season starts with Stud A, a junior, doing all the pitching for the varsity. Stud B, a freshman, is getting all the innings for the JV.
Sure enough, two weeks into the season Stud A breaks her ankle, so Stud B is called up to varsity. A couple weeks after that Stud B is hit by a line drive and breaks her pitching wrist.
For the rest of the season we take calls from this guy reporting 26-8 losses, and he keeps crying, "I don't have anybody who can throw a strike."
Meanwhile his JV team is losing games 34-4. They can't throw strikes either.

 

The psycho mother pulled her daughter from the team.

Just got back from the funeral home, where I talked to the commish. She works there. She assured me several times that I handled things the way they needed to be handled in the original email and that she backs me 100% and that there is a long history with these parents, so that was nice to hear.

But it still does me no good because the girl is was one of my better players. The mother apparently sent an email out to other parents telling them to pull their daughters. None have. I have full support from them.

The commish said that when she called the coach of the team she was placing the girl on, the wife asked who the mother was. The commish told her who and heard the wife sigh.