Obnoxious kid/parent stories, MLB edition

[bigtruck260]

Godwolf - that's a unique perspective...and one that I totally respect. Thanks for sharing.

I guess to clarify my earlier comments, there are times and places for certain behavior. Those parents that were egging the kids on - are probably a parallel breed to the 'hoosiers' I was describing.

Nothing against Ballhawks - they have their place...but I have seen a few ballhawks (even at Wrigley) give a kid a spare ball.

Most of the kids I have come across in STL are well mannered and genuinely excited to be at a Cards game...but there are always a few that you can look at the parents and tell that the "apple don't fall far from the tree".

Thanks for the story GW. Much appreciated.

[OaklandAsFan]

I live in Arizona, and every year I go to as many Arizona Fall League games as I possibly can, even taking two weeks’ vacation in the middle of the six-week season to get in some day games without my job interfering. I’m usually able to attend 20-25 games during that six weeks.

My main enjoyment is The Game itself, of course, but I also try to get some autographs while I’m there – especially from the Diamondbacks prospects – and to corral some foul balls and then have them signed by the guys who hit them; last year I think I got a total of eight, and the year before, fifteen. It’s not the reason I go to the games, but I really enjoy it - it’s a fun ho

I almost always sit out in the right-field stands, and during day games, in the beautiful Arizona sunshine, I’m often the only one out there – just about everyone else is clustered under the shade in the sections behind home plate – but it’s a good perspective on the game, and a lot of foul balls come my way. Unfortunately, nearly every time one does, one of the fathers who has brought his two or three small kids out to the park (I can only assume that they’re home schooled, since this is October and a week day) dispatches his kids over to where I’m sitting to beg for the ball. The thing is, these kids, in most cases, have already got a ball or two each already, given to them by players or adult fans, but it’s a competition – egged on by the fathers – to see who can get the most, apparently.

These kids, for the most part aged 8-12, wander around the stadium, when they’re not sitting on their butts in the shade, mouthing off at the top of their lungs about how many balls they’re going to get, paying attention to the game only when a ball is hit and looks to be going foul. A couple of times, as they’ve wandered by, I’ve told them, “Be careful…you’re gonna accidentally see some of the game!” If a kid is over in my section and a ball is coming down there, I will only go for it if it’s so close it would be ridiculous not to – otherwise, it’s theirs, as far as I’m concerned…but if I’m all alone in that section, and some kid is running over out of the shade wanting me to give him the ball I’ve been getting the left side of my face badly sunburned for, forget it!

One year a couple of extra-bratty boys, maybe seven or eight years old, were doing this, and at one point one of them came up to me, on the verge of tears, saying that he’d dropped his little toy fielder’s mitt beneath the stands – apparently the adults he was presumably with were too “busy” to help – so of course I retrieved it for him – no thanks was forthcoming, of course – and not ten minutes later, they were standing in front of me, telling me, in obnoxious, taunting voices, “We’re going to get all the balls, and you’re not going to get any!” I asked the one kid if he had already forgotten who helped him get his glove back, and he just looked at me like he had no idea what I was even talking about.

Toward the end of the last Scottsdale Scorpions game last season, Phillies prospect Chase D’Arnaud hit a high, high pop into my section – I mean, one of those balls that goes up so high you practically lose sight of it – and even though I sucked at high school Geometry, I could see that it was going to fall within a foot or two of where I was standing. If I caught that ball bare-handed, I was going to get a huge ovation from the crowd – and most likely a broken hand…so I let it drop and just hoped it wouldn’t bounce out onto the field. As it happened, the ball came down exactly between the two seats directly in front of me and stuck in the framework of one of them – I only had to reach down and fish it out. Immediately, I hear the sound of running feet, and a couple of voices – the parents of the converging kids, no doubt – yelling, “Give it to the kid!” I’m guessing that if I had decided to try to catch the thing, and had been lying on the ground, writhing in pain, they’d have been saying the same thing.

Night games are infinitely worse, to the point where I go to those games not even expecting to snag a foul. Gangs of half a dozen to a dozen older boys, some who look to be at least sixteen, array themselves around the stadium and will literally run your ass over if you get between them and a foul ball. HoHoKam stadium, where the Cubs have ST, is the worst, as far as having a bunch of foul-mouthed little jerks prowling the stands.

I think this is the year that I go ahead and get the t-shirt I designed a couple of years ago made – the one with the hawk and baseball logo and the words in Latin that roughly translate as, “'Give the ball to the kid', my ass!”

godwulf I was going to bring up Arizona Fall League. HoHoKam has one family of little brats that their parents take them out of school to bring them to the games. I was at the last game of the season there this year and I could hear the mother and father egging their kids into asking for anything and literally everything they could get after the game from hats and bats to fielding gloves, jerseys, undershirts, sunglasses.

You and I have already spoken about how I go about getting stuff but my little kids get things also but i don't urge or force them into it. When a bat breaks they ask if they can have it. If the answer is no or someone else gets it first oh well they move on and continue to enjoy the game, same thing with foul balls. If they get it great, if not oh well move on.

I actually had some jerk give me grief after a game in Phoenix this season because I asked for a broken bat from Grant Desme and he gave it to me and my boy was standing next to me and very politely and quietly asked Adam Loewen for a broken bat as well and Adam gave it to him. As we were leaving this guy called me a jerk and said I could spread the wealth a bit.

My kids all get their own things, if they ask for it and get it, that piece gets hung up in their room. As a matter of fact I literally only have 1 game used hockey stick that is mine, the one I got from Ilya Bryzgalov after the final game of last year, every other stick in this house belongs to one of my children.

More on topic, I refuse to let my kids pull that BS guilt trip about baseballs and such, they all know its a competition end of story, you have x amount of people at a game and most of them would love to get their hands on something so it wont be easy. Don't cry about it. Things that I have had issues with in the past for example were several years ago when Ramon Hernandez was still on the A's. After a game he went to hand my daughter a pair of batting gloves and my daughter actually had her hands on them and some jerk ripped them out of her hands. I was going to do something about it and then I saw Ramon and he said hold on a minute, went back into the dugout and came back with a pair of batting gloves and a bat and gave them to her while giving the guy a dirty look.

Another issue is signing autographs, I always cringe when I see a big name player walk over to a railing to sign because its almost inevitable that there will be a big push to get to him and some poor little child will get crushed into the railing. I actually saw one time where the player (I foget who it was at this point) stopped signing autographs and picked a little boy up over the railing and carried him into the dugout and gave him a bat then walked back over and found the boys father and handed him back. Then he walked into the dugout and went inside no more autographs for rude people.

[commando]

The rude, arrogant, selfish nature of some people is just astounding. Unfortunately, it's not surprising to me, having dealt with the kinds of people my entire adult life. What you often see in these situations is literally animalistic, where the strong ones in the pack get the "food."

Some of these stories are crazy. What if a husband was handing his wife a five dollar bill, and a stranger runs up and grabs it? Isn't that theft? Well it's no different than a player DIRECTLY handing someone a ball or piece of equipment, and some random person rushing in and taking it. We're not talking about a free-for-all item like a foul ball or item randomly tossed into the stands.

[sox83cubs84]

This one's about an obnoxious and aggravating father. It was a Cubs-Rangers BP before an Interleague Game at the Unfriendly Confines, and several people wear near the Rangers dugout. As Kevin Mench heads over to the cage, I call out and ask if he'll remember me if he cracks his bat. Mench nooded, but a father (with a kid) next to me suddenly admonishes me. "You shouldn't ask for bats" this goof proclaims.

"Huh?" I ask, annoyed and puzzled.

"You should only ask for autographs", he intoned.

The next few minutes were spent with me demanding to know what business it was of his what I asked for, and him trying to defend his idiotic statements.

At one point, he asked, "You don't have any kids, do you?"

My response: "No, and, considering the way most of them act around the ballpark, I'm GLAD I don't!" That shut him up.

Later, A-Rod comes by, and signs autographs in his usual ballpark fashion (meaning picking through the crowd for the kids and ignoring the adults). This guy's kid (who, actaully, wasn't badly behaved) handed A-Rod a dark brown mini-bat and a blue sharpie. A-Rod signed, but, afterwards, you couldn't see the autograph! Regardless, the obnoxious dad turned into a drama queen, and waxed poetic about what a great autograph he got (even if he can't see it), and how much he was going to cherish it for the rest of his life. I tried to barf, but only managed a little spittle.

Dave M.
Chicago area

[godwulf]

I've totally given up on trying to get a cracked bat during the Fall League - unless, as has happened a couple of times, I see one listed on eBay. I'm really only interested in getting one that's been used by one of the DBacks prospects, so on those rare occasions when one of those guys has cracked a bat, and I've positioned myself to ask for it after the game, a young woman in her early 20s, dressed for the beach, has rushed in ahead of me and gotten it. Last season it happened twice, and it was the same woman both times.

[earlywynnfan]

Not the biggest jerk story in the world, but it's stuck with me:

Sitting down the row from a man with his little boy at a Tribe game last year. Dad catches a foul ball and hands it to the boy, and the kid did just what he's seen on TV: He throws it back onto the field. Only we're a little too far up to make the field, so it ends up going several rows in front of us, and bounces on the stairs. This guy down there picks it up, looks back, then turns to his own kid and hands it to him. Some people who had seen this start telling the guy where the ball came from, and the first dad actually went down and pointed out his son. But the second dad kept the ball, and ignored the heckling he recieved the rest of the game. I have to wonder how he justified this to his son??

Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.com

[tmpjets]

I feel your anger on this.As i have said on here me and my brother have the same things happen to us at every hockey game we go to.But in your case there is no way i would let the darn brat getin front of me.And if them are your season tickets as i assume they are.I would tell the team and security do something or i am giving up my tickets.Its no tfair to you that you spend that much money and some kid from the noose bleed seats gets those items.But then again it's the players who are giving them to her.And why,because she's a kid.I know for "pr" reasons they do it.But to me giving it to someone wearing a jersey trumps giving to a kid just for kids sake.

Yes, I do agree with you all, paying good money to sit in the seats and have some kids from 30 rows up run down and get a ball that might have been thrown my way is horrible. At this M's game that wasnt the case the ball was clearly thrown to the little girl. I myself have had many missed balls and autos within two feet of players asking for an autograph only to have some rude parent shove there kid in between full grown adults, and then to give the old one liners"Dont forget the kids" "he was signing hers not yours" and etc...etc. I many of times have told the parents to back off and gotten some dirty looks but then I say "Excuse me but me and the other people here have been standing here since the gates opened and your just being rude, showing up 10 mins ago and think you just can walk in." And in some cases there are a few fans that back eachother up as we all been robbed by some obnoxious kids/parents in the past. Sorry if I was sounded like I was taking sides, because I wasnt, just reading some of these stories reminds me of many past events and only makes me think back and angers me of many lost balls and chances to get an autograph.

[sox83cubs84]

tmpjets:

I've been that way, as well. Kids who just think they can waltz up to the front of the wall and edge in front of you 45 minutes after you've gotten there. Not to mention parents who do the same thing. I had a woman at Wrigley Field urge me to leave my spot on the wall after I caught a foul ball (a roller I gloved over the wall, nothing her kid would have gotten). I forgot just what I told her, but I do recall she gave up trying to boss me around.

Then there's their cousins in ignorance, the place-fillers. You got a player's autograph, and, out of consideration, let a kid in front of you so they can get an autograph, as well. The player signs for the kid, a few others, and then leaves, and the kid suddenly thinks it's HIS spot, even though you told him 3 minutes earlier that you weren't giving him the spot...just moving out of the way so he could get an autograph, too.

Worst at the Unfriendly Confines are one or two old lady ushers down the foul lines (the only place you can now approach the wall at the ballpark) who start telling long-positoned fans (mostly adults) to leave their spots so the kids can get in. I've seen them do it numerous times...just waiting for one of these old biddies to tell ME that.

More to follow later...keep the great posts coming!

Dave M.
Chicago area

[flota89]

Something pretty similar happened to me at the all-star game this year. I had just got a ball tossed to me in my favorite spot to get baseballs. Now, I wanted a ball with the All-star logo on it. Well this one had the home run logo so I stayed in my spot. Being only 15 years old at the time I figured I was young enough to try for another ball. Well some mom comes up demanding I move so her kid can have the spot. She said something like what would you do with two balls anyway, which made me and the guy next to me chuckle a little but. :P I turned around and said no, then ignored her for ten minutes while she talked to herself.

[eisenreich8]

I went for a number of years to the Boston Baseball Writers dinner at the Boston Sheraton. A list of some of the MLB-connected folks I was so fortunate to meet over the years: Sain, Spahn, Pesky, Mrs. Yawkey, Glavine, Rice, Mo Vaughn, Clemens, Tudor, Barrett, Eisenreich, Steve Palermo, Peter Gammons, Piniella, etc etc. More than I can really remember, it was a baseball goldmine.

One year, at the far end of the head table (a looooong table), just when they opened up the floodgates for the 1000 or so fans to seek out autographs from their favorite personalities, I decided to focus on John Tudor for an auto. He was extremely nice and we had a great little chat. I slid a Tudor Topps card to him with a Sharpie. He signed and kept talking and absent-mindedly slid the card straight forward (toward a kid about 12 years old) instead of to his left where I was standing. In the gaggle of kids and adults milling around in that small space, the kid just grabbed the card and started to walk off with it. Tudor yelled "Hey! Bring that card back here!" and then slid it over to me. It's kind of embarrassing to relate this story as I was probably 32 or so when it happened.

But I WILL fight a kid for an autograph I just have to have! Not really. It's not like the kid was especially obnoxious, but he was trying to get one over. Tudor wound up being a good guy in my eyes for that.