Peanuts by Charles Schulz for April 14, 2020

the commissioner and Linus make valid points

Your batter did not meet height requirements.

Kids care less about formal rules than grown ups do and perhaps sometimes that’s as it should be.

It’s not like they stole signs.

That’s the problem with all the pee wee sports leagues; not the kids but the parents!

I know this is just a comic strip, but this an example of parents going too far to correct a minor infraction. Charlie Brown hardly (well never wins a game) and yet they want to take the one win away from him.

I would like to run a social experiment. I would get a bunch of Fortune 500 CEOs and make them play T-Ball and see how long it takes for them to turn it into a competition.

Poor Charlie Brown

There is also a governor in a crisis with a busybody soul.

The Peanuts gang runs into the pitfalls of being the only group of children to have no known parents to organize in their defense.

Long ago I refereed youth basketball. The kids were great, eager to learn, play and be good sports. The parents, however, several times I had to ask some to leave the gym. One guy with a police escort (our Chief happened to be sitting behind him when he tried to tell me I couldn’t ask him to stop cussing (this was a 3rd/4th grade game). Had to toss a coach once for the same infraction (he was incensed that I didn’t call a rolling pick in 5th/6th grade game, on kids that could barely dribble).

Yes sir to that Linus

We once had some parents try to get an injunction to stop the high school football playoffs because Junior’s team lost on a disputed call…

Every media in the world agree with Linus.

Lesson from today’s strip: just let the kids play! Parents and grandparents zip it, please…

Years ago, we always had more fun, win or lose, playing sports ( baseball, basketball, football, hockey, etc.) when it was a “sandlot” game. Parents and organizations seemed to ruin the fun.

Oh no. Baseball parents. They’re a step up from stage parents and soccer parents, but that’s only by two percent.

Charlie Brown allow me to introduce you to a little thing called politics….

Linus is 100% right. END OF COMMENT -WARNING LONG RANT TO FOLLOW – SO STOP HERE IF YOU DON’T LIKE RANTS – CAN WE LEARN -THEY’RE JUST KIDS? I coached ages 5 to 13 for over 15 years in competition. I passed all the coaching clinic tests, was certified, awarded, and license renewed each year to coach all the sports I did. To me – Nothing says ‘stupid’ as much as parents, who never played, never coached, didn’t know the rules of the game or the rules of league play ‘getting together’ to complain about a coach who didn’t do what they wanted because what they wanted – was against the rules of the game/league play. The only thing more stupid was the league committees who had no backbone to educate the parents because of not wanting to lose the income, if the parents pulled their kid out of the sport. I quit when 1. A coach who had coached for over 10 years and had done nothing wrong was lied about by ‘parents’ who were mad because the team had not won any games that year – that was their reason for lying/wanting him suspended(the kids liked the coach, had had fun-I asked them). 2. when the next year I was called before the committee – ‘matter of procedure’ even though -as they said on record -I was not guilty of any violation or breaking of any rules of conduct -but because they wanted to be fair to the ‘group of parents’ = Two knucklehead dads who thought they were coach Lombardi, had suggested to me that I break some rules so the team could win. When I didn’t they drummed up some ‘fake news’ to try to get me suspended. And this is only 1 of a dozen stories I could tell you about those years. Was coaching worth it? Yah, FOR THE KIDS. I got to coach some outstanding kids/athletes. Many were both. Some played through high school, some through college, and one even played pro ball for 15 years. It was fun to follow their careers. And TO BE FAIR most parents were supportive -but there always seemed each year to be the ‘group of parents’ that never did get it. END

Entitled parents, not just a current horror story.

These kids have no parents. Have you ever seen any parents in the strip? ; )

It’s obvious. You have a Beagle playing the outfield. At first the parents thought he was a weird looking kid. They became more suspicious when he caught the ball in his mouth. And he was their best hitter so he had to go.

Height should not be the issue. The pitcher could have pitched underhanded to the kid.

Well, not actually the first game you won, just the first that wasn’t forefitted and you were actually pitching in.

In youth organizations, it’s usually the parents that cause problems.

Frankly, in all these years, I have never thought of CB’s team being IN a league. I thought it was just pick-up sand-lot games.

The next one is a shocker for those not intimately familiar with this arc…

The less adults are involved in Kids’s games, the more fun and less problems you will have.

More frightening are various millionaires and billionaires get together to destroy the middle class.

A group of parents can only think in the interest of the children.