Dear Editor,

I would like to share my input regarding your articles about the harassment of parents toward the Umpires in Dixie youth baseball.

As I sadly read these articles I was reminded of the baseball coach we had in Uniontown way back in the sixties.

He told us two things, “Play as hard as you can to win, but if you lose, lose like a gentleman if you want to play ball with us.”

I can remember a time when the Umpire called a bad play against us, we, the players, began to speak out, the coach walked by and told us grumblers to, “DRY IT UP AND PLAY BALL! BALL GAMES ARE WON BY PLAYING BALL, NOT GETTING UPSET AT THE UMP!”

As a pastor, it distresses me greatly to see ball games and ball practices on Wednesday evenings and on Sundays.

It “use to not be” this way when the Church was a mainstay in people’s lives.

Perhaps if some of those irate coaches and parents were in Church more, their temperaments would be more Christ like. Things would perhaps change for the better if Church nights were respected.

I wonder what would happen if all Christian parents required their ball players to be in Church on Wednesdays and Sundays and not at practice or the game?

I wonder what would happen if they would not allow people in need of anger management to coach their child?

I write this hoping it is not “Christian parents” climbing the fence and yelling in anger at the Ump.

If sports is a god in Demopolis, then when our god doesn’t win, we must ultimately act like the devil.