Sometimes You Just Have To Root For Your Kid's Game To Get Rained Out So You Don't Lose Your Mind

Will Burge6/14/2023 4:30 PM

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Any one who has kids in travel sports knows that it's literally a second job. Between the practices, games, fundraisers, travel tournaments, and everything else involved it can easily eat up 25+ hours of your week.

For the most part, I think travel sports are great. Some of my best memories as a kid are during away tournaments, messing around in the hotel, and getting yelled at by the hotel staff. It was never our coaches or parents yelling at us because they were all bagged up partying in one of the single dad's rooms.

Those are the trips you remember forever. The wins and losses don't count half as much as the dust you kicked up along the way.

I have been at approximately five games a week for the past two months between school and travel ball. All said my son will play somewhere around 70 games this summer. That's 70 times I have to wash the uniform, 70 times I have to pack up the car, 70 times I have to watch the shitty kid who bats 9th flail at a breaking ball. THEY ALWAYS THROW A CURVE BALL DOWN 0-2 HOW HAVNT YOU FIGURED THIS OUT YET?!?

And I love it. But even the deepest, most committed love needs periodic breaks otherwise the next break you have might be a psychotic one.

Today I woke up and it looked like it was going to rain. My son just had a tournament all weekend, has games today and tomorrow, and then Thursday we leave for Tennessee for another tournament. So brother let me tell you, when I saw how gloomy it was outside my ass was standing in the window screaming like Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Along Came Polly.

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Some might call this an "asshole parent" move but I beg to differ. An "asshole parent" move is thrusting your kid into the spotlight at age 10, force feeding him a diet of brown rice and salmon like he's a greyhound training to race at the local dog track, and then dragging him onto podcasts and feeding him lines like some kind of even more pathetic ventriloquist act. Fuck Baby Gronk's dad from here to the moon.

No, I just wanted a little rain on a baseball field. Is that too much to ask?

And then came the rain. Then came the text. "Hey dad, baseball is cancelled today."

Ah dang, son. What a heartbreaker. Was really hoping the rain would hold off…

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Sometimes as a parent the kid doesn't need to know you're rooting against them. I'd say it's for their own good but I would be lying. It's for our good. We need a fucking break.

I enjoy Taco Bell flavored seeds as much as the next guy but sometimes I want to make an actual dinner before 9:30pm. Sometimes I want to sit with a beer and watch an entire Guardians game. At least then I can openly bitch about the 9th batter sucking and not being able to hit a curve ball. Nice try Marky! You'll get em next time! (No he won't.)

I guess what I'm saying is never feel bad for wanting a little break. We give our kids everything we can. We try and make sure they live a life they will look back upon fondly. We do our best.

And sometimes our best is openly rooting for the heavens drown a baseball field like a reboot of Noah's Arc and wash out another 3 hour game where there is 12 walks and 5 errors. Because I swear to god had it not rained today I would have been at the field by 4pm taking matters into my own hands.