The only thing wrong with youth sports is adults.
And adults might be the only thing wrong with adult sports.
Sensing a theme here…
Things were weird back in our day, but nothing like today’s lunacy: Parents attacking umpires, coaches attacking parents, and umpires attacking mascots dressed like umpires.
And let’s not talk about the inappropriate use of giant foam fingers…
When we were ‘kids today’ (our parents shake fists angrily), our biggest sports problem was the belief that “water is weakness” – all we needed were salt tablets to replenish, available from a wall dispenser, as many as we’d like.
I’ve had a 47 year cramp in my left calf as a result.
I wasn’t/aren’t much of an athlete, but I did play sophomore football in high school – the shop class of sports.
And while I didn’t play much, I was our designated ‘game delayer due to fake injury’, and was voted ‘Most likely to be pancaked’ at the banquet. I did learn a lot, though.
I learned our coach was a psychotic, who really cared about sophomore football.
After a 44-0 beat-down, he screamed at us the entire 20 minute bus ride home, which was confusing for 15 year old me; I was grappling with the meaning of life and on my list, football ranked far behind an effective acne treatment.
I also learned playing football was stupid and somewhat painful, so I joined the debate team.
As an aside, our youngest son recovered an onside kick in a 7th grade football game, which apart from the time my uncle rear ended Vince Lombardi’s Cadillac, was our family brush with football fame.
Debate was much safer, and we were on the forefront of disinformation: I brought a few blank index cards just in case we needed a timely quote to save the day.
I never met Sen. Birch Bayh (D-IN), but he was either for or against ‘The threat of Global Cooling: How should we dress?’ the 1971 debate topic, depending on what helped us more.
I ultimately left the team, after refusing to “sweep the leg” at our coach’s direction.
The only sport left to me was yearbook, where my contribution was a feature on disinformation in debate.
Real sports are those compatible with beer, so the ultimate sport is fishing, ranking slightly ahead of couch napping, hang gliding, and couples salsa dancing.
But at our recent local Kingfish Tournament, which offered a prize for the largest King Mackerel, adults behaved like adults do, and a brawl broke out at the awards ceremony.
The brawl catalyst was the rumor of widespread cheating.
Adults do love their cheating…
How does one cheat at a fishing tournament?
I can only imagine, but the worst attempts were:
A contestant entered the ‘Original Big Mouth Billy Bass’, which was fine until it began singing “Take Me to the River”;
Another entered his son dressed as a King Mackerel, which was detected when the boy came up for air;
The most common complaint was the weighing machines were hacked by the Venezuelans, and the contest was stolen.
Unfortunately, a whole bunch of mackerel – and one Billy Bass – gave their lives for nothing.
The contest didn’t declare a winner, but organizers will stage the event again, after the contestants bond out of jail.
Curiously, the King Mackerel Dinner Dance was still held, but the coronation of King Mackerel was derailed by the crowd’s drunken shouts of “Down with the Monarchy!”
But at the end of it all, adults forget the golden rule of youth sports:
It isn’t about winning or losing, it’s all about the post-game treat.
For 123 more posts like this –each with a battered umpire – go to beersatthenifty.com. Your phone will display every post, and you can waste an hour or two.
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Or just forward this to everyone you know. Forward it to those you aren’t fond of twice.
TO ENHANCE YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THIS POST, PAIR IT WITH THE FOLLOWING SONGS:
Hurry Down Doomsday Elvis Costello
The man in the corner of this picture has a sinister purpose
In the teeming Temple of the Railroad Kings
He’s planting a trashy paperback book for accidental purchase
Containing all the secrets of life and other useless things
But I can’t bring myself to look
Wake up, zombie, write yourself another book
You want to scream and shout, my little flaxen lout
Hurry down Doomsday, the bugs are taking over
She sleeps with the shirt of a late, great country singer
Stretched out on her poor jealous husband’s pillow
In time you can turn these obsessions into careers
While the parents of those kidnapped children start the bidding for their tears
But I can’t bring myself to look
Wake up, zombie, get yourself off the hook
You want to scream and shout, my little waxen lout
Hurry down Doomsday, the bugs are taking over
Forget about Beethoven, Rembrandt and rock and roll
Forget about Mickey Mouse, Marlboro and Coca Cola
Forget about Cadillac, Mercedes and Toyota
Forget about Buddha, Allah, Jesus and Jehovah
Hurry down Doomsday, the bugs are taking over
Any day now a giant insect mutation
Will swoop down and devour the white man’s burden
Starting out with all of the sensitive ones
Better make like a fly if you don’t want to die
Look out, there goes Gordon!
But I can’t bring myself to think
Wake up zombie, kick up a big stink
You want to scream and shout, my little Saxon lout
Hurry down Doomsday, the bugs are taking over
You want to scream and shout, my little Saxon lout
Hurry down Doomsday, the bugs are taking over
The Angry Mob Kaiser Chiefs
I can prove anything
I’ll make you admit again and again
That I can prove anything
The way that it’s read again and again
And it’s only ‘cos you came here with your brothers too
If you came here on your own you’d be dead
It’s only ‘cos you follow what the others do
It’s no excuse to say you’re easily lead
You could choose anything
You choose to lose again and again
And you could do anything
But why should you do anything again
And it’s only ‘cos you came here with your brothers too
If you came here on your own you’d be dead
You’re winding yourself up until you’re turning blue
Repeating everything that you read
So here we go with the letter
Well, can you fix it for me
Because we need entertainment
To keep us all off the streets
So tonight you’ll sleep softly in your bed
You could try anything
And no one would know apart from you and me
And you could stop anything
It starts with just one and turns to two then three
It’s only ‘cos you came here with your brothers too
If you came here on your own you’d be dead
You raise a glass or two, you raise a fist or two
And get a shopping basket wrapped round your head
So here we go with the letter
Can you fix it for me
The twenty-four hour drinking
To keep us all off the streets
So tonight you’ll sleep softly in your bed
We are the angry mob
We read the papers everyday
We like who we like, we hate who we hate
But we’re also easily swayed
We are the angry mob
Under the Pressure The War On Drugs
Well the comedown here was easy
Like the arrival of a new day
But a dream like this gets wasted
Without you
Under the pressure
Is where we are
Under the pressure
Yeah, it’s where we are babe
You’re the only one
Like an illusion
When it all breaks down and we’re runaways
Standing in the wake of our pain
And we stare straight into nothing
But we call it all the same
You were raised on a promise
Found that over time
Better come around to the new way
Or watch as it all breaks down here
Under the pressure
Well the break down here
Stole it all the way across
I gotta talk downhill
Stranded on
When you come here and I’m wasted
Lying on a field, dancin’ in the rain
Hidin’ in the back, loosening my grip
Wading in the water
Just trying not to crack, under the pressure
Yeah, it’s where we are babe
Under the pressure
A Punchup at a wedding Radiohead
I don’t know why you bother
Nothing’s ever good enough for you
I was there, it wasn’t like that
You’ve come here just to start a fight
You had to piss on our parade
You had to shred our big day
You had to ruin it for all concerned
In a drunken punch-up at a wedding, yeah
Hypocrite, opportunist
Don’t infect me with your poison, A bully in a china shop
When I turn ’round, you stay frozen to the spot
The pointless snide remarks
Of hammerheaded sharks
The pot will call the kettle black
It’s a drunken punch-up at a wedding, yeah
[Outro]
No no no no no no no no no
Better Woman Honeycutters
I always lose the same old bet, Say I’m through when I forget
I smoke the same old cigarettes, Because they haven’t killed me yet
Same old selfish tears I cry, It’s the same old pack of lies
I’m getting good at my goodbyes, Now I don’t even have to try
I’ll admit when I’ve been wrong
But that’s the same damn song
That I’ve been singing all along
And now I’ve let you down again, Just the way it’s always been
Same old iron I can’t bend, Since I can’t remember when
Different glasses same old wine, Same old trouble on my mind
It keeps me lonesome all the time
And it’s the same wind blowing at my back, Makes it tough to keep on track
And every time we play you deal the same old cards
Well I’m tryin’ to be a better woman
I’m tryin’ to be a better woman, baby
I’m tryin’ to be a better woman
But you make it so damn hard
It’s the same old place it always hurts, Same old smile, same old flirt
And I always say it could be worse, But that’s the same old pile of dirt
And all my sins I would confess, Put on my Sunday best
That’s the same old party dress, And I still make the same old mess
Same old me just having fun, But when all is said and done
It seems I always burn my tongue
And it’s the same wind blowing at my back
Makes it tough to keep on track
And every time we play you deal the same old cards
Well I’m tryin’ to be a better woman
I’m tryin’ to be a better woman, baby
I’m tryin’ to be a better woman
But you make it so damn hard
Ape Self Prevails in Me Still Quasi
The desire to disappear, yet remain here:
It is clear, dear – ape self prevails in me still.