Lessons of Dangers at a Softball Field & What to Teach My Daughter

"This is our fucking field!"

A high school kid in a football uniform was glaring at me beneath the not-so-very-bright lights of Col Jacobs Field in Harlem, as I stood out in left-center field of our softball game, and was nearly plowed over by a sweep.

The kid, backed up by oh about 40 High School players to his immediate right and to his immediate left was another 40 pint-sized mini players of the elementary school size, had the tell tale smirk of enjoying the fact that the practice was taking place IN our softball game.

Hey, at that age I would have smirked too. Permits be damned or not. I also would have been smacked by my coach at that point.

I pictured the headline for the news story: Softball player shot over field dispute in Harlem. I pictured my own reaction if I read such a headline: Idiots.

Yes, I walked away - and bit my tongue because man, I had some verbal gold that I wanted to unleash. I have actually seen this situation before at a softball game. A young kid ran onto a field and the outfielder yelled at him - the kid then came back with a bunch of uncles and friends ("Yo, these are my Uncles!") and it took a fast talking Umpire to cool the situation down. The Umpire calmly said after, "Which is good because they were all packing."

I'm not saying everyone in Harlem packs a gun. I'm just saying that nothing good could have possibly come out of the situation.

What was interesting - I won't even say astounding, or surprising, or even that it did anything more than annoyed me - was that the coaches supervising the practices seemed to be encouraging the behavior.

Okay, I can't even saying encouraging, the female umpire in out game went to talk with the Coaches at one point and in the words of our left fielder, "They basically told her to fuck herself."

This isn't a big social post here. In downtown New York people are being arrested over similar fundamental issues. People just ain't sharing the wealth, or the field, or the piece of candy in a pocket.

I'm not advocating a socialist society - the field really was a microcosm - they had more people, were better protected, and had the field. Yep football coaches on the field - teach the kids they don't have to listen to anyone and to just keep practicing.

Still. Hopefully I'll be able to teach Sienna to share a softball field. Or at least move far enough away if the other people have a permit. Mostly though, I'll probably teach her that sometimes the actual argument with the people ain't worth it and it's more fun to blog about it later.

Wayne