At any rate, spiritually speaking--bad week. Maybe I'm the only Christian who does this, but once in a while I just don't even feel worthy enough to read the Bible. Arrrgh. Silly really, cause no matter what I've done when I read God's awesome words I get to feelin' better.
But oh no, not me. I left the Book on the shelf and had a pity party. And this, my friends, left me unprepared to deal with the incident that happened on the baseball field.
Little league, hot dogs and death threats, oh my. Our boys traveled across the desert to the town that shall remain nameless. Game started and we could see trouble was already brewing. Out of the umpire's mouth, "You don't win in our league." Woa, what? Okay, he smiled so we thought he was kidding. A few times the ump told their pitcher to pitch even though our batter was not at the plate yet. At least one of our batters came up with 2 strikes already on him. So our kids starting running to homeplate before the batter was even out. Their team laughed on the field without stopping.
Then came the most disturbing homosexual remarks from their first baseman--very tasteless. Our kids were told to ignore and play the game. When my son got a hit and stole second, the second baseman said, and I quote, "I'm sick of standing next to this White Sox scum, just call him out already." Surprise, surprise the ump told him to shut up.
Next inning came up and one of the parent's of the other team gave our catcher this warning, "I know where you live and I know where your father works. Tell him he better watch his back." Hello!!! Our young catcher called time and told his father who eased his troubled spirit and said, "Don't worry about it." You see, Dad is a police officer and the other parent probably knew him from . . . mmmmm, having been arrested perhaps? Yep, it seemed that was the case.
Well, it went on and on. The enemy was leading by 2 runs in the bottom of the 6th inning and the umps decided to call the game. What? Their team starting jumping and yelling and sliding into the outfield and calling us . . . oops, I can't tell you what they called us. It might have been a little bit of unsportsman like conduct but our coaches decided not to shake their hands with the traditional "good game" line up. We agreed since their boys and coaches were now throwing racial slurs around.
The team had to walk in front of the other players' parents to receive their complimentary hot dogs and we wound up having to protect them from said parents. Innocent Lady Gatekeep almost smacked one of them upside down her head and so forth. Then I accidently opened my car door into the umpire. Oops, so sorry. I did not actually hit him though.
At any rate, I usually am the one who can let go of it all and turn it into a teaching moment not only for my son but for myself. I do recognize how spiritually unprepared I was for this event. Wish I had a better ending to this story, but alas, there is none. I'm still a little peeved and a little dysfunctional. Oh, bother, there's a game tonight.
1 comment:
Great post. You really captured it. As a little league parent (of the past) I know.
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