[Flasch186]

So 4 years ago my local baseball league for my son was just odd. Weird trades were occurring. Weird practice situations. Weird rule interpretations midgame. Weird roster choices. Just weird and I always left perplexed every season why things were happening as they were.

This past summer I'd had enough and volunteered to be commissioner, in essence, usurping the commissioner that had been in place. Fast forward 8 months and now I feel bad for the me of 4 years ago and all of the other REC parents who don't understand the manipulative, conniving, backstabbing, shit that goes on.

Broadly the league looks like this:

AB Baseball is where the 12-14 best players who come out for evaluation go on this team and get extra practice, extra games, some extra tournaments, and extra reps.

The B Team are the players who just missed this AB team but are better then REC and want to get extra work to develop.

Rec is for beginners and those who are trying it out.


Well if you don't go out for the AB evaluations you cannot play AB or B, just REC. It's a qualifier.

This season we replaced the AB coach (who's a nice guy but was unknowingly being manipulated by a guy over him that we are starting to believe has some sort of ulterior motives) with a great coach. This apparently riles up parents of kids who were shoo-ins for the AB Team under the previous coach. They don't come out for evals...

The previous AB coach volunteers to coach a REC team. Thank you, that's a thankless job. However, there's now a sinking feeling that the kids that skipped the AB evaluations AND the Rec Evaluations [their parents] were conspiring to hide their kids from coaches who might not know who the kids are so that the former AB coach can snatch up a bunch of them at the draft (which he did) and run roughshod over the entire REC division. Now there's been trade requests for carpooling issues etc. The kids on other teams don't get to be with that coach which means less good coaching at the median. If it was dumb luck that'd been one thing but the preplanning I learned about at a kid's party last night tweaked me enough to write this.

We're starting to think that this REC coach intends to beat up on rec and then take the team and kids to another league somewhere around. Not sure but things feel weird.

My son was the 24th kid and tried out for AB. So he should be on the B team. Cool. Well, I'm not one of the parents in the clique so the coach decides that instead of taking the normal 12 he's only going to take 11. The board (I'm not on the board) is irritated but there's nothing in the rules that says he can't. He says he only wants to field 11 for games. I have no objection. It is totally his choice and my son left it in the judge's scorecards and didn't make the cut. I just throw out the idea that my son simply gets to practice and be a reserve and if a kid on the team goes on vacation or gets sick, my son will be ready to come in and play whatever role he wants. No expectations just really the practice reps and extra practice work would do any kid well. Actually some board members think he should have 3 or 4 kids extra at practices in roles like this. He says that he thinks that having 1 extra reserve is a good idea and the board tells him to call me and explain the role (which I already know about and think it's great). No call.... days, no call. The board members are flabbergasted he hasn't called yet. I just feel a ton of anxiety for my son because the B coach is very good and I think getting that practice time with him and his team would be awesome for him. Games are minor in this regard and so much less valuable than the practices to my son.

I look back on myself 4 years ago and am starting to see how this garbage is toxic bleeding going on in this age group.

Just venting this morning after a sleepless night.