TV and your kids

This is Joba Chamberlain of the Yankees, celebrating like an absolute dope.  Showing up his opponents; showing up himself and his profession.  But most of all, showing kids that THIS is what you do.  And so because of lugheads like this on TV, and the breathless db’s like Michael Kay who then run verbal interference for them, kids see this and think that this is what you do on a ball field.

That’s why I had to talk to a kid after he closed the 9U rec game.  I had to talk to him about celebrating.  He got the last out of the game and did the Joba fist pump and let out a war-whoop.  And I’m only an assistant.  The main coach is a nice guy, but I knew he wouldn’t say anything.  The kid is a nice kid and he begged the coach to pitch him and we did and he was truly elated to be getting the side out but the demonstrations have to go.

So there I am telling him that it’s not good to do that and to do it on the side with his teammates but not on the field because you could make the other guys feel bad and it WILL happen to you sometime and you won’t like it and yes, I know that the guys on TV do it (Thanks Joba), but it still isn’t right.

Try telling a kid that their heroes are wrong; that their heroes are jerks.  It’s a hard concept for them.  I couldn’t trot out the old Franz Beckenbauer example, where 30 years ago with the Cosmos, he would score and just trot back with barely a handshake.  I thought that was the height of cool.  You are so blase about scoring that you do LESS celebrating.  But, then again, I didn’t live in the time of ESPN and their systematic desensitization of our kids.  You don’t think TV is a big influence?  You don’t mind the stuff going on in wrestling, for instance?  Hmm…