Japan Vs Curacao

I guess that those things just don't bother me as much as they do other people, and maybe they should.

Its not that I'm an angel about it either as some have pointed out. I remember playing a 14U tournament when my son was in his 2nd year on the big field. His team was playing another local team and it was a close game.

In about the 3rd inning, their pitcher came out wearing the brightest red pair of mirror, reflective sunglasses you ever saw. It just so happened that the way the sun was, it reflected straight into the batters box as he was delivering the pitch.

Our coach, and I think rightly so, asked the ump to do something about it. The ump told the pitcher to either change glasses or take them off. Then his mom started hollering that they were prescription glasses and they didn't have another pair with them.

That's when I started hollering and asking why he didn't need to wear them before and the s*** hit the fan. Needless to say, things got pretty ugly with all of the back and forths, but eventually the ump ruled that it was a safety issue because the pitcher had to be able to defend himself, and if he couldn't see the ball, he couldn't do that.

After they changed sides, guess who was the 1st batter and guess who didn't have his glasses on? Our coach got very upset and I wasn't far behind. He called time and asked the ump what in the heck was going on. How was it possible that this kid needed prescription glasses to pitch, but not to hit? Now the mom says he can't see the ball well enough with sunglasses on to bat! I was so livid I couldn't see straight when the ump just looked at the coach and shrugged his shoulders.

Just when everything got settled down, their coach calls time and point out to the ump that our pitcher had a two colored glove on and its distracting his hitter. it was one of those black gloves with a brown laced web. When the ump told him to change his glove, our coach comes out and asks the ump why he didn't say anything when he was pitching the other innings and the ump told him that if he had noticed it he would have.

That one stuck with me for two years and I wouldn't let go of it. I actually hated that kid, his mom, and the makers of reflective sunglasses and two colored gloves everywhere! In retrospect,

I still can't believe I overreacted that much to such a meaningless thing, but at that moment in time, that was the most vile and unfair thing I ever saw. So, it happens to us all at one time or another. And when you really think about it, if an adult can act in such a sorry way, how can you get very angry with a kid for doing the something equally stupid?