Last summer, my then 11-year-old and his teammates played in the Ripken Experience baseball tournament in Myrtle Beach. It was awesome. It was also hot. We all knew it'd be hot in August in South Carolina. Kid you not, there were coaches from Florida complaining of the heat. I adjusted pretty quickly and thoroughly enjoyed our week spent in South Carolina. A buddy went to Coastal Carolina as an undergraduate so I used to visit him for Spring Break back in the early 90s. I hadn't been to Myrtle Beach since then.
As one of the coaches for my son's team, I got to meet former MLB player Reggie Sanders, who gave opening remarks for the tournament. As a run up to the tournament, we listened to one of the organizers encourage us to behave ourselves during the tournament. In other words, act like grown men, and don't harass umpires. "Assistant coaches, let your head coach do the talking. Assistant coaches, sit on your buckets." We laughed. We did exactly that, we behaved and sat on our buckets during the games. I've taken that advice with me. I'm in my happy place keeping score for the team as part of my assistant coach duties. A lot of teams use GameChanger to keep score, but I'm old school and use a scorebook and pencil. I sit on a bucket, spit out sunflower seeds, and keep a good book.
On occasion I see parents lose their cool and talk shit to umps, but mostly the parents stay cool when they watch games. I very rarely lose my temper in life so it's pretty easy to stay composed during baseball games. If I'm even close to getting mad, I remind myself to chill out and sit on my bucket. These are kids playing baseball, I remind myself, let's keep this all in perspective.
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