PETER BUFFA -- Comments & Curiosities

“Kill the ump.” It used to be a joke. Today, some people take it

seriously.

I’m glad to see that the world of youth sports is getting tough on

noisy, obnoxious parents. Having spent many a morning and afternoon in

bleachers, behind backstops and along the sidelines of white-striped

fields, albeit years ago, the out-of-control parent problem does bring

back memories. But in a world less civil, what’s going on today ranks

much higher on the ugly scale than anything we experienced.

Locally, the bell-ringer was a boy’s AYSO championship game in San

Juan Capistrano in June. Play had to be stopped a number of times during

the game when parents on opposing sidelines got into cross-field bouts of

shouting and animated gesturing. As the game-ending whistle blew, an

assistant coach, of all people, started in on one of the opposing

players, huffing and puffing about some disputed play, and began poking

this poor kid in the chest to emphasize his major points.

Within seconds, more than 30 parents, coaches and officials began

reenacting a saloon brawl in a John Ford western, having at each other

with fists, feet and anything they could grab. One particularly gifted

parent charged onto the field with a piece of re-bar and started swinging

at anything standing.

By the time the army of Sheriff’s Deputies finished their paperwork, a

number of parents required medical treatment, the genius with the re-bar

was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and two others were

arrested for resisting arrest.

But here’s the really interesting part. The kids themselves never got

involved and just stood by quietly as the “grown-ups” rolled around in

the grass, pulled each others’ hair and tried to avoid the guy with the

re-bar.

The AYSO district voided the contest, banned the assistant coach for

life and disbanded the two teams. Some people thought that last part was

a little extreme, but we’ll get back to that.

And if you think that’s as bad as it gets, you are mistaken. You’ve

probably heard the accounts of similar incidents around the country in

recent years. In a Massachusetts youth hockey league, an irate father

beat an opposing player’s father to death.

In Northridge, a Little Leaguer’s father attacked his son’s coach and

threatened to kill him. Why? Because his son only got to play three

innings of a six-inning game. Incredibly, the attacker was sentenced to a

grand total of 45 days in jail.

Some informal research with youth sports types in the Land of

Newport-Mesa showed that while we haven’t seen anything as extreme here,

there are more than enough unsettling moments in a typical season to keep

our coaches and officials worried.

When did this nonsense start, and whose idea was it anyway? As usual,

I have few answers and the ones I do have are suspect.

When we were doing the parents-in-the-bleachers thing, I remember the

occasional parent who screamed a little too loud, or long, and got on

people’s nerves, on and off the field. But the general rule was the same,

sappy one your mother taught you. “If you can’t say something nice, then

blah, blah, blah,” which is still darn good advice, I might add.

On the rare occasion that something unpleasant was shouted to an

umpire or an official or a coach, there would be quick censure from other

parents along the lines of ‘Come on, settle down. We don’t need any of

that.” Of course, in those days, other parents didn’t come after you with

re-bar either.

If I go back even further to my own playing days, just after World War

I, I don’t have a single memory of any stress or strife between parents,

coaches or officials, although some definitions might be in order.

My “playing days” were entirely baseball, Little League through high

school JV, and the concept of being upset about playing “only” three

innings would have been entirely lost on me. Over some 12 seasons of

baseball, I don’t think I played three innings total. Equipment managers

hit on the ankle with foul tips had much more contact with the ball than

I did.

But sitting on the bench for 12 years gives you a keen sense of what’s

happening in the stands behind you, and I just don’t remember any of this

nonsense we hear about today.

In part, the change in bleacher manners from 1961 to 1981 to 2001 is, I suspect, a simple reflection of society. One of the downsides of an

“anything goes” society is that anything goes.

The other element, I think, is that parents of young kids today are

much, much more tightly wound about “star quality” than we were. When we

were doing the kid thing, most parents wanted the little darlings to do

well in school, find a sport they liked, be polite, don’t dress too weird

and, mostly, stay out of trouble.

Today? Oy. The stress level is stratospheric. It has to be the right

schools and the right sports and the right classes. There are a few

parents who hire hitting coaches and speed coaches for Little Leaguers.

“Doing well” may be just fine for those other kids, but you, my little

cutie, are going to excel. The good news is you’re going to be a star!

Is there anything worse than a Little League father who has decided

that his son’s performance is his last shot at redemption for the ground

ball that went through his legs in that big game in 1975? I think not.

So let’s get this ugliness off the field, out of the park and out of

town. And for the youth sports parents out there, here’s a quick measure

of how you’re doing. If the kids are having fun, you’re doing it right.

If not, you aren’t. I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays.

He may be reached via e-mail at [email protected].