Last week I took my oldest son to a Quad Cities River Bandits game against the Burlington Bees. The River Bandits won the game 9 – 4 with an awesome comeback by scoring 6 runs in one inning. My son had a blast watching the game and eating hotdogs and winning a free slice of pizza. My son really wanted to catch a foul ball so he can have a souvenir from the game.
At the end of the game he didn’t have a chance to catch one so I told him to go watch the River Bandits pick up their gear and head into the tunnel. Sometimes the players might give baseballs away so I figured he could get his game ball that he wanted.
My son was asking politely and being patient with the players trying to get a baseball from one of them. After watching other kids aging from 12 to 16 years old getting bats and balls I just thought he couldn’t reach the gifts. But what got me angry is that several toddlers aging from 2 years old and younger was also getting bats and balls from the players. Correction the toddler’s fathers were getting gifts from the players and not them. Thinking about it a 2 year old or younger toddler will not care if they get a bat or a ball from a player.
My son was so heartbroken from not getting a ball or bat that it hurts me as a father watching him get passed up. Before we went to the game my son was so excited to go, but now I asked him yesterday if he wanted to go again and he is not as excited as he was before our first game.
My opinion, the players have to watch who they give their bats and baseballs to instead of just handing stuff over to whoever grabs it. My son plays t-ball baseball for our city and he plays first base very good and he bats very well too. He really likes baseball a lot and also likes watching the River Bandits play ball.