Parents, WATCH YOUR KIDS!
I have ranted on this blog many times about unruly kids at ballparks. I’m not just talking about the annoying seat-kickers, but the ones who are *free-range*. They are seldom in their seats, they just run around in the stands or on the concourse. This often greatly interferes with our enjoyment of the game, yet nothing is done about it most of the time. Most ballparks are quick to warn and then throw out drunken adults who are being loud, disruptive and using inappropriate language. But disruptive kids too often get a free pass, just because they’re kids. Sorry, but this is not right!
The two ballparks that have been notorious for the free-range rugrat problem are LeLacheur Park, home of the Lowell Spinners, and Fraser Field, home of the now-defunct North Shore Spirit. Lowell is the worst, so bad that we no longer go to games there. We gave it several tries, but we can only take getting our food and beer knocked over by feral children so many times. Getting kicked in the head by kids who use the seats and railings as jungle gyms is also not conducive to game enjoyment. Yet this has happened to us on EVERY VISIT to LeLacheur. We’d see ushers standing by, who do NOTHING about these kids.
At Fraser, I swear that some parents dropped their kids off at the gate, give them money to buy tickets and stuff, and leave. We used to always see little kids running wild in the place, no parents in sight. We had a season mini-plan for a few years for the Spirit, until we got tired of these kids being allowed to annoy us. We finally decided not to renew because of this. We went to exactly one Spirit game last year, and nothing had changed. So we said *never again*, which turned out to be true, because the team went belly-up.
We’ll give the new team that’s moving into Fraser, the North Shore Navigators, a try, and see if their staff can control the little monsters better than the Spirit staff did.
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But since it’s clear that many of these parents don’t give an airborne copulation about my enjoyment of the game…how about this…consider the SAFETY of your children!
It would be so easy to be a Chester The Molester at a place like LeLacheur Park, it’s not funny. When kids are running wild, and no one is watching them, it’s easy to pretend to be the kid’s parent and haul them away, kicking and screaming. Or, you could target a kid who’s running around trying to catch a foul ball, and tell him or her that you have a ball, autographed by the team, that they can have. But it’s out in the car, come with me and I’ll get it. I wonder how many of these kids would go, and the parents would never know until it’s too late.
So many times, I’ve gone to these ballparks, and halfway expected to go home, turn on the 11PM news, and see a story about a missing kid. They’ll show a picture of the kid, and it’ll turn out to be a kid I saw running wold at the ball game that I just came from.
Damned straight I’d call the cops if that ever happened. And I’d be sure to tell them that I saw the kid running wild at the ballpark, with NO parental supervision. I’d want to see the parents get in trouble for being negligent. Chesters can be anywhere, so parents need to be VERY careful.
Still not convinced that it’s dangerous for kids to be allowed to run wild in a ballpark? THEN READ THIS, and watch the video. If they can bring these perverts to the circus, they can bring them to ball games, too. And you can see how very well supervised these sexually deviant mental patients are, right? Their handlers fall asleep on the job and don’t pay attention…sorta of like what the parents of the free-range brats often do at the games.
So, if you watch your kids at the ballpark, and make them stay in their seats and not run around all over the place, it’s a win-win for all. Your kids will be safe, and I can enjoy the game.
Do we have a deal, parents? Can we make the upcoming baseball season an enjoyable and safe one for all?
