This both makes me happy, and pissed off....

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=reilly_rick&id=4406915

A girl I work with knows my crazy obsession (I call passion) with baseball and decided to forward over this little article to me. I was angered. Then I finished reading it, and I felt a little better, but still angered.

To sum this up, it's about two kids who get hurt playing little league baseball in two different parts of the country.

Kid 1: Slides into second on a double, tears his ACL. Mom sues the team manager, the 1st base coach who waved him to second, and the league. She settled for $125,000.

First off, your kid is a pussy. Yeah, I said it. If you don't know how to slide and get dirty as a young boy, then good luck with your life, you should be wearing a helmet when you walk down the street for the rest of your life. Also, you shouldn't be playing baseball (I hear competitive chess is really taking off.)

Second, people who are managing baseball teams for kids are volunteers. Non-profit organizations are running these leagues, as in...THEY ARENT MAKING MONEY OFF THIS. The only compensation these people get for the headaches of organization, scheduling, fields, safety, and whiny-bitchy parents is the good feeling of helping kids have an opportunity to play sports and maybe even some enjoyment of staying involved with a game they love. That is it. I seriously am considering calling up this woman and harassing her. It just might make me feel better than Kid #2.

Kid 2: Playing catcher, tags a kid out at home plate and breaks his arm in the process. What does this kid do? He asks his coach what he can do to help the team and stay involved. Wow, I love this kid. If I had a son, and he did this, I would cry tears of pride.

I was in a similar situation as a senior in high school. The 2001 class wasn't a strong one talent wise for baseball at our high school. The 2003 kids had gone to the national tournament the summer before. Guess what, they filled the remaining varsity spots my senior year and many of them started over seniors to start the season, including myself. Because I wasn't 6ft tall, my career growing up as a pitcher (which I dominated) was now moot, there were kids taller, younger, and better than me. I also didn't play much in the field or at the plate in recent years as I was DH'd for when I pitched, and I had recovered from a herniated disk (see Joe Crede) that I suffered from for 2 years. To sum this up, a lot of my teammates my age who lost their starting spots to younger kids quit in the middle of the season. Babies. I stuck it out, helped my teammates anyway I could, cheered my ass off at games, busted my ass in practice. 8 games into the season: "Wernick, you're at 3rd today" and never sat an inning the rest of the year. My parents had even tried to convince me to quit that year as they didn't like seeing me on the bench. I knew my stubborn and persistent personality would pay off somehow, because that was the best season I ever had and by far the most fun I ever had playing baseball. I have stories from that year that I'll remember to the day I die and can tell my grandchildren about. All because I didn't quit like all the other whiny babies.

All said and done, glad this kid got an award. He deserved it. I feel terribly sorry for the other kid. He may be a pussy, but he probably likes baseball and just wanted to have fun. I don't feel sorry that he got hurt, that shit happens, but I feel sorry he has such a low-life set of parents as I don't even want to know what moral lessons they fail to teach him in the future. This kid probably will get crucified at school in the fall by other kids.