The amount of emotion I feel over this subject ... and the glee I am taking in other people's misery ... makes me feel like an extremely bad person ... I'm just putting that out there ... because it really does kind of bug me ... but then again ... it kind of doesn't ... because the karma train really did drive straight through the middle of my daughter's softball game ... Some of you may remember me writing about major softball drama that happened with my daughter's softball team this summer ... she had three coaches ... two of them were so concerned about playing favoritism to their own daughters and just being the kinds of coaches you hate to see coaching your children that it made her miserable ... and this is a game she loves ...
We (meaning the lemon man, my daughter and I) decided early in the season that no matter what she wouldn't play for those coaches, on that team again ... she had played competitive softball before ... before I had to move in with my mom ... she knew, I knew, we all knew she was capable ... so we got her all set up for about twelve tryouts ... and then she went to California ... was rough housing with her cousin and broke her hand ... she was in a cast for four weeks ... so to those of you looking for a follow-up to the last
softball blog ... she never really played .... so we didn't have a chance to see if any changes were made ...
There was a coach from another team that posted in a forum that he was looking for players for a new competitive team at the beginning of July ... I had contacted him way back then ... and when I told him that she had broken her hand and wouldn't be able to try out he called the lemon man and said they would hold her a spot ... to those of you that have never dealt with competitive sports ... that never, ever happens ... they want those spots filled ... they want their money ... they want to start practices and get going ...
When she came out of the cast there were several teams that still wanted to see her ... they had spots here and there to fill ... she went and tried out for the team that was holding a spot for her first ... and went to another tryout the following night ... she had five other tryouts scheduled that week ..
The coach that held her a spot offered her a position ... she took it ... and she didn't go to any more tryouts ... she is playing a year ahead ... she should technically be on the 12 and under first year team, but she's on the 12 and under second year team ... so most of the girls have more experience and are much bigger than her ...
I love her new coach ... he is a big teddy bear of a man ... that talks to the kids instead of yelling at them ...
Her first game was last weekend, and actually it was games because it was a double header ... we show up at the field and almost instantly are approached by one of the moms from the old team ... her husband was the only coach on the last team I liked ... she told me how their daughter had made it on to a competitive team too ... and then started telling me how three of the other girls were on another team within the same organization ... her daughter had made it on to basically the B team ... while these other three girls made it on to the C team ... then she tells me that one of the old coach's daughters is one of them (the one they played favorites to for my daughter's best position ... catcher) ... and about two minutes later while we're talking her mom comes walking up ... we figure out that my daughter is playing against their team ... you could tell she was smug ... overly confident ... the bitch she normally is and is teaching her daughter to be ...
Now, the other two girls that were on that team were friends with my daughter and she really likes them ... so I do kind of feel bad for them ... so the girls take the field ... I notice that in the dugout her old assistant coach is one of their assistants ... I get butterflies in my stomach and tell the lemon man I really hope our girls win ... our team was up to bat first ... my daughter batted sixth ... and as she walked up in her lime green uniform ... I was so proud of her because she didn't even glance down at the catcher that was her nemesis the entire last season ... she hit the ball hard to left field ... they finished the game winning 23-1 ... but it wasn't over ... there was a second game ... they finished that one 18-2 ... and our coach actually went easy on them ...
My daughter was elated ... the coach that was so mean to her the entire last season ... played with her and grabbed her while they were shaking hands ... told her he'd never speak to her again ... oh, that's a shame ... the other team was clearly unhappy ... I did feel bad ... but at the same time ... I felt like the karma train left its mark ... and now my daughter can move on and know that she is bigger than them ... bigger than they made her feel ...
Then there was the icing on the cake ... the mom who approached us when we first got there came up and told us that the a-hole head coach my daughter had ... well he pulled his daughter out of rec and said he wasn't going to coach anymore so that she could play competitive ... well ... she didn't make a team ... and the rumor is that she was blacklisted because of his behavior and reputation ... while I feel bad for his daughter ... I just felt like that was icing on my daughter's karma train ... now for the rest of this year ... and next ... she has a team that she is set with and she can just have fun and play ball ...
