[twitter]The first rule of sports is: give it to the kid. If a puck goes over the glass, if a ball goes into the stands, if a player is handing a stick over the boards, the rule is: give it to the kid.
When I went to the Flames game last month, Jokinen flipped a puck over the glass at a young kid. It went a row further than he wanted and a big guy with a beer grabbed it, and stuffed it in his pocket. Wrong.
Give it to the kid is such an entrenched rule that one father died trying to make it happen. Shannon Stone leaned over the fence at the Texas Rangers‘ stadium trying to make sure his son caught a ball. He had caught a ball at his first game, and he wanted to do the same for his son. He leaned too far, and died.
Tragic.
So it’s unfortunate to see this scene play out last night at Rangers’ stadium. Player tosses ball into crowd, kid wants ball, douche gets ball and gloats. Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay lit up the fans. “Oh, my God, they can’t give it to the kid?”
Yes, give it to the kid.
There is a tact when broaching the idea of defeat to a child. Eliminating defeat from their lives entirely is way worse. As if loss or defeat is going to destroy a child’s psyche. It makes children very ill prepared for the real world eventually where just about everything is virtually opposite to how a parent might be raising them. The world isn’t that rosy of a place that we don’t need to teach our kids these lessons. In 95% of these situations, it’s just a pandering gesture to make the adult look good. Most people are not that selfless in thinking the reward is seeing a child smile. We just tell ourselves that.
Don’t take my word for it, have a read of this story from cyclist Jens Voight and what happened to him in the Tour de France.
Give it to the kid.
http://bicycling.com/blogs/hardlyserious/2011/12/28/a-gift-from-jens/
Finally, I saw a young boy standing with his daddy. I rode over to him and slowly and carefully aimed at the kid—not trying to hit him! I just wanted to drop the bottle at his feet so he could pick it up and have a nice souvenir. And that’s exactly what I did.
But then, to my total disbelief a middle-aged guy just tackles the kid like a defensive back in the Super Bowl! And then, while the poor kid tries to regain his balance, the man grabs the bottle and starts putting it away. I watched this and kept on riding, but I was just steaming in disappointment and anger—yes, anger!
So i thought, “No this is not going to happen!” Until then I was having a super day. I was feeling good. The sun was bright and it was just one of those moments when I was proud to be a professional cyclist. I just wasn’t going to let this guy spoil my day!
At that point I just decided to stop my bike, turn around and start rolling down the hill again. All these people on the side of the road are watching me in awe and silence. They were probably asking themselves, “Is Jens going to abandon? Is he injured? Why is he turning around in the final of a mountain stage?” But I was just looking for that man who tackled that little boy. All this time, the crowd remained silent, waiting for would happen next.
Finally, I saw the guy and stopped in from of him and just pointed at his bag and told him that the bottle he grabbed was for this kid standing next to him. Of course at that point he hands over that bottle and I get back on my bike again, and I have to admit I felt pretty good about it. But then the crowd just erupted and I am sure that at this moment I was getting about as much applause as the guys in the front group with the yellow jersey
That’s a completely different story from the first and has nothing to do with catching a ball at a game. And assuming someone doesn’t have children because their world doesn’t revolve around your child is just wrong as well. Your world revolves around your children and mine around mine. And no, I don’t expect the world to stop and everyone to make concessions because mine enters a room.
I would have explained to the child that one day they may grow up and catch a ball too and isn’t it nice for those people that they did just that. The child should be taught to be happy when things happen for other people.
Absolutely nothing to be sad about.
Yeah, let’s get into a deep, detailed logical discussion of winning, losing and fairness in life with a sobbing 3-year-old.
Christ on a bike, it’s a baseball. Give it to the kid and go buy your chick one at the team store if you want one so bad.
I’m sure the player would have intended the kid to get the ball not that couple but that aside, I’m on team give it to the kid.
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What if the adult who caught it has a kid at home to give it to? That happened to me recently at an Orioles game. I caught the foul ball fair and square – my first ever after four more than decades of going to games.
But fans near me yelled at me to give it to a kid who was 9 or 10, who I didn’t know. I thought I might end up on some youtube video as a bad guy, or the local broadcast might have caught me reaching over people to get the ball, so I gave it. I wanted to give it to my own 12-year-old son.