Where Are The Parents?
By Keiti | May 18, 2008
You know - I always wonder why children don’t have any common sense and are pretty much lacking all around in the personal responsibility department.
And in response, today’s reply is…
“Oh, wait. These are the parents!”
It seems that parents in New Jersey are holding a metal baseball bat responsible for their son’s brain damage as a result of a baseball hitting their son in the chest during a game which stopped his heart. The ball (you guessed it!) was hit with a metal bat.
Somehow an inanimate object is responsible for what can only be classified as a freak accident.
You know, those inexplicable and gut-wrenching situations that sometimes don’t have a good outcome.
So, they’re suing the makers of the bat, the store that sold it, and Little League Baseball.
Why stop there? Why not include the baseball? Or the kid who hit the ball? Or the air for letting the ball fly through it? The parents say that metal bats are unsafe for children’s baseball because the ball flies faster off the metal bat than a wooden one. What would their argument have been if the bat had actually been wooden?
This whole victim mentality drives me insane - everything is always someone else’s fault, even freak accidents. I once got tossed off a horse when the saddle broke and I landed on my head on a dirt / gravel road. My parents didn’t sue the makers of the saddle or the girl who saddled the horse or the city for the dirt / gravel road. Nope - instead they dragged me to my brother’s middle school band concert.
I didn’t end up with brain damage (which could be arguable, I suppose) which tells me that the parents are using the lawsuit as a means to deal with their emotional turmoil about the state their son has ended up in.
I feel bad that their child now has brain damage and has to live with that for the rest of his life, but c’mon, people, let’s be realistic. This is no one’s fault and the parents should find a better outlet to deal with the emotional repercussions of the accident instead of lashing out.
What scares me more, though, is the fact they’ll probably walk away with a windfall. Which only perpetuates the victim mentality.
Grrr…
Topics: Misfit Hall of Shame, News Stories |
May 18th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I’m not surprised by the victim role part of this one bit. However, I am surprised they still allow metal bats in little league. This was an issue maybe 8 - 10 years ago and they determined that the metal/carbon bats could hit the ball so hard and fast that it was beyone human capacity for the pitcher to duck out of the way in time to not be hit. (Something along the lines of the ball leaving the bat at 2x or 2.5x the speed a ball would leave a wooden bat) Yes, the entire damn thing is a shame. If anyone should feel guilty, it should be the parents for making the kids feel the need to be so damn competitive that they need state-of-the-art equipment to play f-in little league.
Ok, there’s my $.02 for the day, i’m done now.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
and when i said “beyond human capacity,” i was referring to reaction time…
May 18th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
If the problem came up 8-10 years ago and Little League Baseball didn’t take care of the issue then, then I can see where a lawsuit against them would be appropriate. They didn’t do what they should have done to rectify the issue.
But to sue the makers of the bat and the store that sold it is still way overkill and still falls under the lashing out part.
I agree with you about the parents pushing their kids to be hyper-competitive and instilling in them the materialistic “got to have it” mentality. Especially since kids should be having fun, learning teamwork, and recognizing that winning (especially by any means necessary) isn’t everything.
And I knew that you meant reaction time.
k~
May 19th, 2008 at 4:18 am
I’m glad you guys touched on some social issues hidden underneath the unfortunate incident. In lieu of the recent disclosure of the rampant drug use in all sports - and I can remember being in Catholic high school in 81 and steroids were already present - I’ve decided to encorage my daughter to become a rock musician…
It is a shame that parents are so goofy… I’m not sure if I just criticized myself.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Keith,
I love that you have your daughter’s future priorities straight.
Where in the hell have you been?
k~
May 19th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
[...] and I had a brief conversation in the comments section of yesterday’s post where he informed me that the use of metal bats in children’s baseball had been a bone of [...]