There are a few things I wish to discuss with you under the topic of ‘baseball’. I know we’re all excited that the Rangers were in the World Series for the first time ever, even though they got their asses handed to them for all intensive porpoises. It was still exciting. Irregardless, I’m not really here to talk about the Rangers. Or the Dallas Cowboys. Ahem. One and six? Seriously? Yeah. Let’s move on.

Let’s talk about little league! My son plays for the Local Ball Club Association for Baseball Playing Children of the Local City Ball Club Academy. It’s not a school team, but a select registration team. Anyway, I’m not sure any of that is relevant except to say that it’s not a school team. Which is important for several reasons, which I will list here:

• The coaches of the team are paid by the school.

Okay, well that wasn’t several. But I think that’s the only important one. Let’s look into it. Okay, so the coach is paid by the school. That means they have no political agenda. There’s no favoritism on the team. The coach’s son, namely, doesn’t get to play every position just because he’s the coach’s son, for instance. It also means that if you get in good with him he’s probably not going to just let your son play every hit, every pitch, every play of the game – even though he sucks.

My son’s team sucked this year. They won one game. Out of however many they had in the season, they one won. There was some real strong talent on that team, but a lot of the talent didn’t get to show itself due to the favoritism of the coaching staff. The coach was a grandpa dude. His son was the assistant coach. His grandson (the assistant coach’s son, therefore) was the primary pitcher. And he sucked. Probably one of the weakest players on the team. But he’s the coach’s grandson, so he gets to play all the time. He got tired and they’d pull him out – but he’d just go play another position. In the infield. Every play of every game, he was involved. And get this: if you didn’t show up to the short-notice pitching practices, you didn’t get to pitch. Ever.

The second assistant coach was some douchebag who just got to be really good friends with the assistant coach. Therefore, his kid always got to play as well. Every play of every game.

There’s a scam for you. They decided spur-of-the-moment that they were going to have pitching practices – apart and away from the two practices and two games per week (who has time for that?). And of course the parents who were friends of the coach knew about it, but they officially announced the first pitching practice only a few hours before it was scheduled – on a Saturday. And if you didn’t show up, you’d never be considered for a pitching slot. Sigh.

Okay I guess I’m done ranting about this. It just pisses me off that the onlyest reason these idiots are coaching is so their boys can play. Every play of ever game. Dude, give some of these other (better) kids a chance on the field. And if you actually want to win games instead of just letting them play, it makes even more sense to use the good kids. Put your dork non-fielding son in right field and let the good kids manage the infield. Maybe you can win some games then.

I know next year we’re playing on a different team. I’d like my kid to have a shot at winning. And playing for a biased, agenda-based coach who plays favoritism for the worst kids on the team is not the way to get there. Seriously, if you’re going to coach a kids’ team, shouldn’t you be unbiased if for no other reason than to avoid getting your ass kicked by the parents of children who really can play?

That’s another sad thing. There were almost no dads there. Well, not none. Say there are fifteen kids on the team, there were like four dads there. Seriously. Well, three of them are coaches. The other few were always hanging out in the dugout – probably trying to get their boys some field time. But yeah, hardly any dads show up to watch their sons play anymore. There were a lot more moms out there. I’ll bet though that it goes back to the same thing I’ve been saying all column here. They were frustrated with their boys getting pushed back in the order behind the coaches’ kids, and didn’t want to get arrested for assault.

I think next year we’ll get him in golf. That way there’s no coaching bias, and – not being a team sport – each kid’s talent speaks for itself. If they can’t play well it’s their own score that suffers. They don’t bring down the other kids. And if the coach is an asshole, I’ll have a bag full of irons and woods to help me persuade him. “Hey coach! Wanna see a birdie?”