Sociology at a softball game!

Playing six games this week, I got to see lots of different types of  fans. And let me just say that they are all completely different! Particularly on Friday at our Awareness game. Both teams came together and played to raise money for the Susan G. Komen fund. We had a great deal of cooperation involved among both teams and parents in order to make the game run smoothly and have fun at the same time. A lot of fans came out to show their support and it was really great to see. However, during one of the later innings of the game, there was a play that was made, and the umpire made his call and our coach did not agree. Because of the call, my coach felt the need to defend us and go appeal the call. As soon as she did this, a father of one of the players from the other team became pretty much outraged. He was yelling at our  coach to sit down and shut up and just showing a great deal of disrespect towards her. At this point in the game, we were winning by quite a few runs already and maybe the call did not need to be appealed, but our coach was only doing so to defend our team. It was obvious that both teams and parents and coaches all valued winning just as much as the other, but some took it to drastic measures. I found similarities between the father and my coach because they both valued standing up for themselves and their team because they both wanted to win equally bad. The father just took it a bit too far. As well as their values, the father clearly knew right from wrong and set an example for all the other parents there. Everyone else clearly thought that the dad was a bit out of control and needed to just calm down and be quiet, and instead of telling him to do so, they instead did not mimic his actions, and saw him as a perfect example of how NOT to act. Minus, the one incident, the fundraiser was successful and we all had a good time, with the exception of one poor father....