Baseball dad

[wild man]

As I have said I am in a kind of different area. One way we are different from lots of places is our LL area encompasses 3 schools a long way apart. only one offers Softball. So in the other places the girls play Baseball with the boys. Now I also umpire lots of local BB games.

This year I noticed a tall Blonde girl on one of the teams, Not unusuall but this girl is about 6ft at 12 years old, And she pitched. And boy did she bring it about as fast as they got in the box she set them down again. I have never seen a girl throw that hard at that age.
And she hit 7 home runs, She has a beutiful swing.

Well I found out that she is not from one of the far out rural areas but from right here, And will attend the local High School. Well being a Softball coach I approached her about playing for me next year.

She was ecstatic. " All my freinds play for you it would be so much fun to play with them". I thought I had an ace in the hole: Then I met her dad: His reply was " NO she is not playing THAT GAME". The girl was obviously hearbroke. She will have to play Juniors Div baseball in LL next year.
Sadly for her Juniors Div here is the most competitive youth BB Because they travel all over and lots of kids washout quick.

She will not have fun BB next year all because her dad has something against Softball.

 

[abbygale]

Maybe a little friendly education will help him along. Worst case, buy him a tractor. It worked for Nick Nolte.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Since I only have 1 child a DD, I thought I'd be stuck going to cheerleading or band, maybe ballet. First year softball at 5, we were both hooked. Hate it for this guy, he will regret it when it's too late.

 

[sluggers]

One more example of a Daddy thinking he is smarter than his DD when he it comes to what sport his DD wants to play...

For her sake, I wouldn't give up. In another year, the boys are going to leave her in the dust. As soon as the boys start developing upper body strength, her baseball career will almost certainly come to an abrupt, painful end.

To be fair, the Daddy has probably never seen "real" fastpitch softball. If all he has ever seen are 12U rec league games, I understand where he is coming from. Perhaps you could invite him and his DD to at least go and see a game or two of real softball. It might open his eyes.

 

[Comp]

My daughter played baseball from around 8 to 13. She wanted nothing to do with softball, it was baseball or nothing. She actually played 1 year of JR little league and held her own, even made the allstar team, but I could see it was the last year she could possibly be competitive. The boys were just getting so much bigger and faster than her that she just could not compete any longer. Reluctantly I got her to try out for a softball team and she enjoys it more than she did baseball. The game is so much faster and more action going on in than in baseball. Now she wishes she had made the switch sooner.

 

[Greenmonsters]

This .

 

[SoftSocDad]

It's unfortunate that girls aren't 'allowed' to play baseball, but when you've got a kid, you have to work within the parameters that are available. For this young athlete, there's no future in baseball. Of course, she's not *required* to play either game, but hopefully she'll be able to explore the limits of her athletic talents in an enjoyable setting.

And I'm one of 'those dads', too - there's no way I'd let my child play 8u rec ball here next spring.

 

[InsidePitch]

I wish I'd of put my DD in LL when she was 5 or 6 and moved her this year, 11.

 

[Doug]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned ... see if you can talk to the mom !

 

[3DD'sDAD]

My DD has a friend that she played softball with on a travel team. She had a not so great experience last year in softball ( a different team than my daughter's we live an hour from each other) and took up bb this year. Her father is a huge "ball" fan, but leans to bb, but is totally supportive of his daughter playing softball. Anyway, to the point.....she has been asked to try out with Team Ontario which is the Provincial team that will represent Ontario at the Canada games.
She is that good, and I wish I could have been successful recruiting her for this year's softball team. She is 14yo (15 by end of year) and will hopefully come back to softball as the boys mature. In the meantime, I wish her and her father (yes mom too!) the best of luck in whatever ball they pursue. I do hope it is softball next year though.........
Not all bb fathers are "those fathers". Thankfully.