A non-Mets but a baseball story here. I just read where a woman from Staten Island sued the New Springville Little League and Little League International because her son, aged 12 at the time torn up his knee sliding into second base. Her claim was the coaches were negligent in teaching her son how to slide properly.
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The first thing I want to know about the child is was he overweight. I’m not picking on the kid if he was fat I’m asking because in 10 years of Little League coaching I’ve had 10,11 and 12 year olds that were so over weight we didn’t have baseball pants to fit them or shirts. I had a 12 year old who wore a 40 waist pants and XXL shirt (his parents thought it was so cute that Big Mike was playing ball even if he couldn’t run, catch or swing a bat without weezing) so maybe this young man was a bit to heavy and that led to his injury.
My next question would be is the child a special education student? Many parents never tell coaches that their child suffers from ADD or ADHD. I am not an educator or a psychiatrist so when I yell at a kid for not paying attention or not looking at me when I’m speaking, it’s because I think the kid is a goof off, if I know in advance that the kid has issues I’d approach him a different way but Little League is forbidden to ask if a child has behavioral problems. That is a huge issue. I’ve had many kids like that, in fact one kid was just a real nasty sort and one day at practice when he was tired of hearing me tell him to catch the ball with two hands he told me to go fuck myself. My son heard this and was ready to beat the kid to a pulp. Finally when the mother told me he didn’t take his “meds” that day I realized the kid was sick.
I volunteer for lot’s of things because I believe in giving back. No one grew up in a better environment than me and I tried to give that to my own kids. I always feel for children who come from homes where it’s not ideal and I’ve always felt that sports is a way of showing kids that teamwork and pulling for one and other is a life lesson and for the most part kids are great it’s the parents that suck.
One thing Little League needs to do is run coaching seminars in the winter to help ladies and gentlemen who would like to volunteer and either don’t know the rules or they are intimidated by other coaches. I’ve had teams where I needed two other people to help me and it was hard between the apathetic parents (the majority unfortunately ) and the ones who feel they are limited in what they know or can do about the sport. If the parents had some guidance the program works a lot smoothly.
I hope this woman will be happy with the money she gets (I know the ambulance chaser who took the case will put his take to good use <sarcastic>) and maybe her conscience won’t bother her when she passes the New Springville Little League field when it’s gates are locked and the grounds are full of weeds and the kids who’s could have made great friends and learned that there are people who not only are there to teach you to play baseball but to listen to your problems and try to help you are all gone but then again when you sue a local Little League you have no conscience.
I wanted to hurl when I read this. Although having served on jury duty on Staten Island I’m not surprised. To be quite honest, when I was on a panel for a civil case involved the MTA and a woman who fell on a bus the answers by the folks on the panel to the attorneys questions were embarrassing. Some woman claimed she couldn’t serve on the jury because she had to be home every day at 4PM to make dinner fro her husband. Another man said he lived in Totenville and coming downtown was a “pain in the ass” for him. So this moronic verdict is not shocking.Â
A non-Mets but a baseball story here. I just read where a woman from Staten Island sued the New Springville Little League and Little League International because her son, aged 12 at the time torn up his knee sliding into second base. Her claim was the coaches were negligent in teaching her son how to slide properly.
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I wanted to hurl when I read this. Although having served on jury duty on Staten Island I’m not surprised. To be quite honest, when I was on a panel for a civil case involved the MTA and a woman who fell on a bus the answers by the folks on the panel to the attorneys questions were embarrassing. Some woman claimed she couldn’t serve on the jury because she had to be home every day at 4PM to make dinner fro her husband. Another man said he lived in Totenville and coming downtown was a “pain in the ass” for him. So this moronic verdict is not shocking.
The first thing I want to know about the child is was he overweight. I’m not picking on the kid if he was fat I’m asking because in 10 years of Little League coaching I’ve had 10,11 and 12 year olds that were so over weight we didn’t have baseball pants to fit them or shirts. I had a 12 year old who wore a 40 waist pants and XXL shirt (his parents thought it was so cute that Big Mike was playing ball even if he couldn’t run, catch or swing a bat without weezing) so maybe this young man was a bit to heavy and that led to his injury.
My next question would be is the child a special education student? Many parents never tell coaches that their child suffers from ADD or ADHD. I am not an educator or a psychiatrist so when I yell at a kid for not paying attention or not looking at me when I’m speaking, it’s because I think the kid is a goof off, if I know in advance that the kid has issues I’d approach him a different way but Little League is forbidden to ask if a child has behavioral problems. That is a huge issue. I’ve had many kids like that, in fact one kid was just a real nasty sort and one day at practice when he was tired of hearing me tell him to catch the ball with two hands he told me to go fuck myself. My son heard this and was ready to beat the kid to a pulp. Finally when the mother told me he didn’t take his “meds” that day I realized the kid was sick.
I volunteer for lot’s of things because I believe in giving back. No one grew up in a better environment than me and I tried to give that to my own kids. I always feel for children who come from homes where it’s not ideal and I’ve always felt that sports is a way of showing kids that teamwork and pulling for one and other is a life lesson and for the most part kids are great it’s the parents that suck.
One thing Little League needs to do is run coaching seminars in the winter to help ladies and gentlemen who would like to volunteer and either don’t know the rules or they are intimidated by other coaches. I’ve had teams where I needed two other people to help me and it was hard between the apathetic parents (the majority unfortunately ) and the ones who feel they are limited in what they know or can do about the sport. If the parents had some guidance the program works a lot smoothly.
I hope this woman will be happy with the money she gets (I know the ambulance chaser who took the case will put his take to good use <sarcastic>) and maybe her conscience won’t bother her when she passes the New Springville Little League field when it’s gates are locked and the grounds are full of weeds and the kids who’s could have made great friends and learned that there are people who not only are there to teach you to play baseball but to listen to your problems and try to help you are all gone but then again when you sue a local Little League you have no conscience.
Posted under Uncategorized
This post was written by kranepool on August 11, 2009
Tags: 10 Years, 12 Year Olds, Adhd, Baseball Pants, Baseball Story, Education Student, Educator, Goof, Little League, Meds, Mets Baseball, Parents, Paying Attention, Psychiatrist, Pulp, Special Education, Staten Island, Two Hands, Weezing, Young Man
