nutty grampas

[dustyshoes]

Crazy coaches and parents have long been HB fodder, how about grammas and grampas that blow into town like a texas twister and wreak havoc on a softball family.

The background: I've got two dd's, a 12u and 10u, on their first travel teams this year. Grandpa coached dw back in the softball stone age before travel existed and still knows everything about the sport. He showed up last summer and hijacked my older dd's all-star team but that coach was a friend from the neighborhood who knew him and welcomed him to help out. Gramps had the time of his life, the kids loved him and to give him some credit most likely brought something to that team they wouldn't have otherwise had.

He was chomping at the bit to come see the dd's play travel (mainly the older one) and I made it clear to dw that I expected her to sit on him since I would be too busy as an assistant coach with my younger dd's 10u team in the same org. Dw knows her dad has a hard time recognizing his boundaries but thinks I'm too hard on him so I reluctantly let him come with me to a practice thinking I could keep tabs on him by putting him to work with me on the 10u practice. Wrong, he wandered over to the 12u field the second I wasn't looking.

The Halloween tourney went well, both teams advanced to the semifinals and gramps got to see dd pitch a shutout against a very good team to get us there. When the coach sent an email summary of the tourney to everyone I just had to know how bad it was for him and replied inquiring. He sent a quick, "I'm glad you noticed, give me a call when you can" reply. I thought, "oh crap, he actually wants to talk" instead of just sending a short reply indicating he was a manageable pain in the a$$.

The phone call went fine, he mostly told me how great he thought dd was doing but he did talk about gramps offer to help the team's power hitter with her swing among other offers of his coaching brilliance. We had a good laugh about a lot of it and he said he's dealt with similar situations in the past but to let him know when he's coming next spring so he'd be prepared for it.

Anyone else have a similar situation and how did you game plan for it?

Dusty

[hotwheels]

Crazy coaches and parents have long been HB fodder, how about grammas and grampas that blow into town like a texas twister and wreak havoc on a softball family.

The background: I've got two dd's, a 12u and 10u, on their first travel teams this year. Grandpa coached dw back in the softball stone age before travel existed and still knows everything about the sport. He showed up last summer and hijacked my older dd's all-star team but that coach was a friend from the neighborhood who knew him and welcomed him to help out. Gramps had the time of his life, the kids loved him and to give him some credit most likely brought something to that team they wouldn't have otherwise had.

He was chomping at the bit to come see the dd's play travel (mainly the older one) and I made it clear to dw that I expected her to sit on him since I would be too busy as an assistant coach with my younger dd's 10u team in the same org. Dw knows her dad has a hard time recognizing his boundaries but thinks I'm too hard on him so I reluctantly let him come with me to a practice thinking I could keep tabs on him by putting him to work with me on the 10u practice. Wrong, he wandered over to the 12u field the second I wasn't looking.

The Halloween tourney went well, both teams advanced to the semifinals and gramps got to see dd pitch a shutout against a very good team to get us there. When the coach sent an email summary of the tourney to everyone I just had to know how bad it was for him and replied inquiring. He sent a quick, "I'm glad you noticed, give me a call when you can" reply. I thought, "oh crap, he actually wants to talk" instead of just sending a short reply indicating he was a manageable pain in the a$$.

The phone call went fine, he mostly told me how great he thought dd was doing but he did talk about gramps offer to help the team's power hitter with her swing among other offers of his coaching brilliance. We had a good laugh about a lot of it and he said he's dealt with similar situations in the past but to let him know when he's coming next spring so he'd be prepared for it.

Anyone else have a similar situation and how did you game plan for it?

Dusty

That is a great story!!!

[Tucson]

Just how old is gramps? He may be the same age as a lot of us. Just listen and learn. You said that the girls love him.

[NumeroUno]

I know how it can be a pain in the Arse but appreciate the time that your dd gets to spend with him, it wont last forever.

[absdad]

We had the grandfather of one of our pitchers would come to alot of games last season. When she was pitching he'd try and throw of the batters.. "throw em' a spitball", "her comes the inside slider" And he would also bark out batting instructions too... "get your elbow up", etc.
That guy had such a really loud voice. I don't know how nobody managed to keep from killing him.
I'm sure everyone has met this guy at a game before.

[Blind Squirrel]

I know how it can be a pain in the Arse but appreciate the time that your dd gets to spend with him, it wont last forever.

Don't want to get too sentimental about this but my daughter has asked if she could get just one tat: Three words her Grandpa always told her when they talked about playing ball (The 3 D's). He's gone now and she misses him.

John

[dustyshoes]

Tucson, NU and Blind Squirrel,

I hear you and completely agree about appreciating having him around while he's here even though I'm sure he'll continue to drive me crazy. He's 78 (give or take a year or two) and the girls that loved him were on the rec all-star team last summer not dd's current travel team. The travel team got their first sample of him last weekend and were at a minimum entertained by him. He's always talking about the rec-all star team and how he had "more fun than a guy my age should be allowed to have" and I was happy for him to have enjoyed it so much. He was even saying he thought that all-star team could take dd's new travel team after watching them practice but he backed off of that when he saw the travel team play in the tourney last weekend.

absdad,

It sounds like my brother-in-law must have a dd on your team. I haven't heard him yell anything about spitters or sliders but he is certainly an "elbows up" kind of guy. That was probably going to be his advice to our slumping power hitter. He also likes to help the umpires out by screaming "Infield fly!" at the top of his lungs when that situation occurs.

hotwheels,

If I had the time and writing skills, I could do a blog on this guy and his softball antics that would leave everyone here in stitches.

[NumeroUno]

I am already laughing I can picture it now. Perhaps 2 shots of jack before each game, maybe one between innings. Good Luck

[dusty]

As I mentioned in Squirrel's thread I came back here because I've been thinking about my FIL's role in my dd's softball lives recently and remembered this thread from both my dd's first year of travel ball. He's still around and as ornery as ever but his health has been declining recently and dw has been flying south a lot to spend time with him and my MIL.

Looking at it now it reads like I'm almost angry with him and I don't remember feeling that way at the time. That is reflected in some of the replies but I was expecting more reactions like Hotweels which was more about the humorous side of this guys antics rather than me venting about him. One thing that is also clear to me now is that I took travel ball waaayyy to seriously.

I'll make a couple of separate posts about what has happened since I started this thread that are humorous to me at least. While he seemed more interested in my older dd and her teams he turned his attention to my younger dd with a vengeance once older dd decided to hang up softball after HS.

[artomatic]

As I mentioned in Squirrel's thread I came back here because I've been thinking about my FIL's role in my dd's softball lives recently and remembered this thread from both my dd's first year of travel ball. He's still around and as ornery as ever but his health has been declining recently and dw has been flying south a lot to spend time with him and my MIL.

Looking at it now it reads like I'm almost angry with him and I don't remember feeling that way at the time. That is reflected in some of the replies but I was expecting more reactions like Hotweels which was more about the humorous side of this guys antics rather than me venting about him. One thing that is also clear to me now is that I took travel ball waaayyy to seriously.

I'll make a couple of separate posts about what has happened since I started this thread that are humorous to me at least. While he seemed more interested in my older dd and her teams he turned his attention to my younger dd with a vengeance once older dd decided to hang up softball after HS.

Ok, ok, I might have poked myself in both eyes reading this...
Dammit!

Now that my youngest is a college graduate, I got off the couch and am helping on a team.
All I can say is many Grandpas are alive and well in the stands......