Psycho Sports Parents vs. Laid Back Sports Parents

                Since Won Bin is working so much more, our seasons on the baseball field are on hold, which is fine with me because now I can avoid awkward situations like having  guests over and finding my son's athletic cup on the dining table.

            "Haha!" I say, pretending like it's not a normal thing.

            I do miss the fun spectrum of parents that I get to meet at the games- all the way from the laid back ones to the psycho ones.  You know the psychos because usually they're the ones who are yelling at their kids with the same intensity as the Hulk,  "JIMMY!  JIMMY!  GEEEET THE BALL!  GET THE BALL!  JIMMY!"  As if someone has pressed the slo mo button on the kid, you can see the light bulb slowly forming in Jimmy's mind, "Huh.  I think they're calling me. Maybe I ought to get the ball?" Then the psychos start screaming with blood spilling out of their pores, "THROW THE BALL!  THROW THE BALL! NOOOOOO!  NOT THERE!!!" 

            Because their high powered day jobs usually don't raise their blood pressure high enough, these parents spew, spit, pull hair, and scream so loud that their lungs spill out of their mouths.  Impressively, they have body motions that could land a passenger jet single handedly.  Historically, the first bald man originated from a baseball game; a psycho coach pulled out all of his hair, and ever since, you see men walking out of those games bald.

            You know laid back parent because they're the first ones to yawn, "Wow, t-ball is really boring!"  Instead of yelling at their kids to get the ball, they take pictures and laugh "HAHA!" when they find their kid picking lady bugs or playing the congas on their cup.  If you're a laid back parent, you've spent time daydreaming about a foul ball bonking off a psycho's head and taking him out.

            I saw this with my own eyes:  once during a t-ball game, a laid back mom was out coaching on the fields on a beautiful sunny day and she probably got dreamy about how cute these little boys look in their uniforms; cause when the ball rolled to her, with a big gypsy-like smile, she picked it up and handed it to a cute little outfielder next to her.  Well, the psycho dads were seething and screaming, "INTERFERENCE!  GET HER OUT OF THERE!"  They stampeded the field and to this day, that woman has never been seen again.

            A group of my friends once came to watch my second son Isaiah play in a t ball game.  We were picking our noses with boredom, snacking on junk, and shooting the breeze.  When my son came up to bat on coach pitch, my friends started cheering him on with comic stuff like:

STRIKE ONE:  Don't worry!  It's not you!  It's the ball's fault! Haha!

STRIKE TWO: You'll get it next time!  It's the bat's fault! Haha!

STRIKE THREE:  It's not your fault! It's the pitcher's fault! Haha!

            Well, he finally got to hit off the tee, and we were back to snorting licorice.

            Later that week, all the parents of the team got an intensely sensitive email from our Coach who was foaming at the mouth:  "One of the boys in the dugout said that their parents said that my bad pitching was the reason that he could not hit the ball! Do you know how stressful it is to throw that ball to the boys?  I work diligently to assure each boy with a pitch that is made for their individual swing. . ."

            Would you ever imagine someone blaming the coach pitch.

            After intense interrogation with harsh lights and a lie detector, Isaiah still stuck with his original statement that he had not sold us out in the dugout. Since the email said the parents told the boy this at home, we were pretty sure that there were psycho parents who actually did think the coach's pitching was the reason their son wasn't hitting.

            Quickly I wrote an email back to him, "I am SO SORRY that this happened to you.  You are a great coach, and we appreciate all you do so much."

            Apparently, my husband wrote the same exact email, and this must have carried a lot weight with the coach, because when the end of the season team party came, he gave Isaiah the monster trophy of them all- the Sportsmanship trophy.  This made me ecstatic, cause I know, as a parent who can be both psycho and laid back, that it's a perfect place to hang their athletic cup.