Baseball Crazies

As some of you may already know from lurking on this blog off and on, Joe decided this was his last year of coaching baseball. He had been inching away from it for a few years, but he just decided the time had come to put more focus on Kel's softball and become just a spectator at J.'s games. So he graciously thanked all the families he had coached for so long at the end of the season and said, "Adios." And I said, "Hallelujah!"

Well, in the last week or so, J. has decided he no longer wants to play summer ball competetively. Since next summer will be his last before college, he wants to travel to different schools and get paperwork in order for scholarships and financial aid. So he told his dad this week he was only going to play during the school year and get focused on *life* this summer. Secretly, Joe and I felt a great sense of relief because the parents on Joey's team had gone a little crazy this summer and spent the majority of their time complaining rather than cheering.

So Joe, who puts on a fundraising tournament every year for J.'s team because the participation fee is so high, decided to make the tourney a fundraiser for the softball team since J. was no longer playing. He handles every aspect of the tourney from open to close from courting prospective teams, buying insurance, scheduling umpires, concession inventory, budget spreadsheets, ordering entry wristbands, trophies, just everything. It is his baby, so to speak.

Well, this morning, bright and early, he got a phone call from one of the baseball crazies (This year the #1 baseball crazy) berating him because he had *disappointed* her by not helping them raise money for a team with which he was no longer affiliated, even asking if he would SPLIT the money with the baseball team. Said crazy had already berated the head coach earlier in the week because his job situation had changed (not by any fault of his own), causing him to not be as available as he had been and that was just going to be unacceptable. She was just all so disappointed in everyone.

I've decided that people are just nuts. The world is going crazy and everyone is out of their minds. Can I scream to the heavens how thrilled I am that this part of our lives is over? Softball may end just as scarily down the road, but for now Kelsey is not playing ultra-competetive, travel every week, $1000-a-kid ball. And our goal is that she never will. We are trying to learn from our mistakes.

So for anyone who reads this, while we do have the one stalker crazy mom to deal with, life is good today. Closing that chapter of our lives and moving forward feels great. I mean, it will feel great until Wednesday when school starts and then I'll be back here again, moaning about all the injustices I'm experiencing at the co-op. Some things never change...

~Peace