Kids just get pulled and tugged

It takes a village to raise a child but it takes travel ball to take the kid on the road. I am hearing stories about conflicts and commitments surrounding kids 12 and under and, in some cases, older high school athletes who are scheduling tournaments that conflict with a school sports schedule.

“But I’m only 9.”

“Sure and next year you’ll be only 10 and pretty soon you’ll be like me, only 50, but washed up.”

A young athlete should never be put in the middle being pulled and tugged like saltwater taffy by amateur coaches whose point is to prove exactly what?

PASSION PLAY - I don’t really understand the latest Brett Favre - now “Jet Favre” according to New York Daily News - ploy to stay a boy, but I’ve noticed a pattern this summer that really makes me quite happy and that is the prevalence of angry and morose and dissatisfied really rich people.

I like it when football players like Lito Sheperd and Brian Westbrook feel like they have out-performed their contracts and start sulking, like five million a year is barely enough to get by.

Hopefully everyone with a job is out-performing his or her contract; I know I am and I also know that on any given Sunday Dennis Forney may come to me and say, “I can’t believe I ever thought you were funny.”

SCOOTERS AND PRIUSES - Ever notice that people who have money to squander usually don’t and are the first to purchase the impossible, to get a Prius Hybrid and buy a scooter like it’s a dinghy attached to an ocean going yacht? Hang at Wawa for 20 minutes and watch people with beat-down, three-hub-capped corroding American cars putting seven dollars in the tank then talk to me about hybrids. The people themselves are hybrids who plug into all kinds of energy sources short of overpriced Red Bull and vitamin water.

I drink vitamin water as a beer substitute - it has cost me lots of friends - and I have an entire case of 32-ounce bottles with Shaq’s picture and a few with Big Poppy. And when did drinking water from a plastic bottle or - God forbid - jug and holding the bottle up in the air away from the mouth become cool? None of these accoutrements make a person cool except maybe drinking from a 32-ounce Shaq bottle while wearing an iPod and riding a recumbent bike.

DRIVE BY - Next time you’re heading north to shop for school clothes at Target, look to the left at Milford where the town cop usually hides and you will see the new women’s stadium out front, but you have to turn, then get out if you want to see the turf field unless you have a sunroof and a really long neck.

The Henlopen Conference is a colorful league and becoming more balanced and any team that is pretty good to average can count on a losing record. There are fewer automatics than in a redneck’s living room floor safe.

SNIPPETS – Friday, Aug. 15 is the first day for fall practices for high school sports and all athletes need parent permission, proof of insurance and a current physical by an authorized medical professional. I went fake physical once and had Uncle Harry, the King of Bogus Degrees, fill out a form and sign it and it worked, but when he told me to turn my head and cough I got real nervous. My family doctor was actually named Dr. Effinger and back in high school during a clock-stopping injury he came onto the field as team doctor for Pennsylvania powerhouse Neshaminy, winners of 51 games in a row and way better than Middletown, looked down at me because I was screaming at the sight of my hideously dislocated finger. He grabbed my hand - I screamed louder - popped it into place and said, “Shut up, you big baby!”