Ain't no wrath like that of a woman's whose child has been scorned!

I am beside myself with anger. My son is one of the best baseball players on the 11 year old league, and this is straight from the stats, not just a momma who only sees the good her son does. He is a natural at baseball. At eleven, he is totally aware of the game, how many outs there are, what the batter will probably try to do - he's got it all figured out - I am totally amazed to watch him during the game. My other son is also really good at baseball, but he has to work really hard at it, it just seems to come to Colby easier. Now, that's not to say he doesn't get nervous, many times he can be seen chewing his fingernails during a game, but he's definitely got a baseball brain.

So, each year he makes the All-Star team. Whichever team wins the league gets to take 8 of their players and choose 4-6 players from other good teams, he has been chosen for the all star team every year. Two years ago, we had a problem with coach of the all star team, he invited Colby and would use Colby until he got a lead then he would sit him and put players from his team in that were not as good. We don't mind him taking his turn sitting the bench, but it was clear what was going on and this coach is known around the area as a snake, I don't even know why the parents in his own town allow thier children to play for him.

Last year, he invited Colby to the 10 year old all stars and we declined because we didn't agree with his coaching style. Colby played "up" with the 11 year olds and had a great time. This year another town won the league and this coach told a baldfaced lie about my son to try to get the other coach not to invite Colby to play with them. He said that when our team beat their team that Colby made a snotty remark to him - throwing it in his face that we had won. This was a couple of months ago, we asked Colby about it and he said, I probably said something to him when we were shaking hands, but it wasn't anything bad and I don't even remember it. You know, now that I'm writing this down, it all seems so silly, but I am truly upset by this.

Colby is playing and we're going to Ste. Genevieve, MO this weekend for him to play in a tournament, but now, there's this black cloud over the whole event. I was looking forward to it and now I'm not. This is something he loves to do, he is good at it and because a grown man is jealous of his abilities, he is using whatever he can to keep a kid, a good kid out of the game. How can he live with himself? I do not know if I can hold my tongue this weekend, but I'm going to try really hard. I will not, however, allow this to go unanswered. When the season is over, I plan to have a talk with that coach, if my husband doesn't first and I plan to tell him how disappointed I am with how he handled himself, that if my son truly did say anything inappropriate to him, the thing to do would have been to come to us and allow us to deal with it. We are trying to teach these kids how to be a good sport and as a coach, he should have facilitated that, if he was given that opportunity. Not only did he say that Colby said something to him (we never did learn what that something was), but he said that his players would not come along to the tournament if Colby went - this guy is an absolute ass! I swear, I'm not just saying this, everyone says how good of a kid he is, he's polite, you never hear much out of him - DJ is a mouth, but Colby really just keeps to himself when focusing on baseball.

Well, the other coach pretty much said that Colby was being invited either way, so they did all choose to come along - and we were told that no one else - I'm sorry, this is so hard to understand and I'm going to quit babbling about it and just try to get through this weekend with this jerk without boxing him in the mouth. Bad thing is - we will spend about the next month with him and if Colby didn't truly love this game and this experience, I would decline the invitation, but since I don't want him to know what's going on, I'm trying to keep an excited front for him.

Wish me luck. Sorry for the long post.