Kick Out the Sports!
by Bob Cook

Bob Cook's weekly ruminations on sports appear Mondays in Flak.

Isaac Newton taught us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton's third law, it appears, applies to youth sports as well as physics. Thanks to general obnoxiousness by violent, overbearing parents and their venal offspring, we now have leagues banning a tradition almost as longstanding and revered as sticking the worst fielder in right field. That tradition is infield chatter.

Like many so-called reforms, the banning of infield chatter is sold as something that must be done for the sake of the children. If you played don't have children playing youth baseball, you may not know this is going on. I learned of it about midway through a parents' meeting for my 6-year-old son's baseball league.

About midway through the meeting, a league official asked us to pull out an orange sheet of paper. On it were the rules of decorum and sportsmanship for players and parents alike, and the official read them to us: "We will refrain from any abusive behavior such as insulting, belittling, negative cheering or physically abusing others."

Fair enough. Youth sports-related idiocy reaches the police blotter so often, you'd think that instead of beginning with a ceremonial first pitch, games would begin with a ceremonial punch. I mentally applauded the vigilance of my son's league for doing whatever it took to create a positive atmosphere for young and impressionable players.

And then, the official expanded upon what was on the sheet: "No negative cheering also means, no 'Hey batter, batter!'"

Suddenly, my mental applause because mental booing. You mean this league bans infield chatter? You mean, "we want a batter, not a broken ladder" is considered a crime equal to some foul-mouthed parent threatening to beat up an umpire?

My son's league is not alone. The national offices of PONY Baseball and Softball, with which my son's league is affiliated, and Little League baseball do not explicitly ban the shouting of "we want a pitcher, not a belly-itcher." However, an indeterminate number of leagues across the country are quieting infield chatter and its cousin, bench jockeying, in the interests of protecting the fragile and developing egos of players, as well as defusing the fragile and developing rage of some parents. These misinformed leagues obviously have not considered the benefits of infield chatter.

First, chatter keeps kids' heads in the game. On my son's team, composed of 6, 7 and 8-year-olds, I've seen players distracted by airplanes flying overhead, an ice cream truck in a nearby parking lot and the unmistakable yawn of a blade of grass as it grows. Baseball is not a game for those with short attention spans, and if the kids are watching the batter and yelling at him to "sa-WINNGGGGG," at least they're paying attention, which is half the battle in coaching children.

Also, I learned in my youth baseball days that if you're annoying enough in your bench chatter, your coach will put you in the game just so he doesn't have to listen to you anymore. My technique, circa 1981, was singing Styx' Paradise Theater album, song by song, in order. I ended up becoming a starter, I think, because my coach would rather have had me botch a grounder than hear my 11-year-old self break out another rendition of The Best of Times."

Another case for infield chatter is that it imparts important life lessons that can be drawn upon in adulthood — which is what many coaches say organized sports are supposed to do, right? Someday these little ballplayers will be making sales presentations. And when they do, they'll know that rivals are rooting for them to fail, that the potential clients are looking for reasons not to buy from them, and that the failure of their presentation could bring ruin to their company. If you heard "Hey batter, batter!" as a kid and learned to block it out, you'll be ready as an adult to face these pressure situations. If you didn't, you'll grow up to "sa-WINNGGGGG" when you shouldn't.

We shouldn't worry so much that infield chatter will scar the sensitive souls of our children. Have you heard their toys and games? A popular baseball computer game is a constant stream of mocking chatter. There's a bowling set with pins that laugh at you until you knock them down, and a soccer set in which the goal trash-talks you until you score.

Such familiarity with chatter may explain why my son's team, and others in his league, have gone all Henry David Thoreau on the no-negative-cheering rule. The kids chatter, the batter hears it, and no one seems worse for wear. In fact, you could say Newton's third law is at work here, too — if a popular form of cheering is banned, then the equal and opposite reaction would be a rebellion. Unless another reaction comes in the form of some sort of chatter police, I expect we'll hear the sounds of infield chatter for a long time.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.