I've made a list, I've checked it twice. I've decided who's naughty and nice. Some haymakers are coming to town!

As you know, I never said it was okay to punch someone in the office. I’m racking my brain to remember when I’ve seen it and can’t remember it happening specially but probably did at one time or another when I was in a combat arms organization in the army.

I do remember a situation in business where I had 2 former military officers who worked for me that disagreed about something we were looking at implementing. One of the guys happened to be a West Point graduate. He was smart fucker, but could be a real prick sometimes. When the WPer realized he was losing the argument, he started subtly belittling this other good guy who had gone to Norwich. It finally got to the point where Norwich grad told west pointer (who was a much bigger guy, I might add) that if he did it again he was going to kick his ass. West Pointer did it again and Norwich walked over, picked him up out of his chair and body slammed him. He didn’t punch him, but he made his point and neither my partner or me did much about it other than separate them. Best I can do.

seriously, man, you think that's tolerable in the workplace? From every angle it appears to have been mishandled. And I note that it presumably didn't occur in the presence of a few 11-year-old's, because if it did you breached every obligation I can think of.

is an okey-dokey way to solve workplace disputes.

living out their insecurities through their kids' sports? I've seen alleged adults wildly berating officials in kids' hockey, jumping aggressively on coaches about ice time because less talented kids are getting ice time, etc. I've seen kids leaving a rink crying because Daddy was off the rails on one thing or another, embarrassing the kid in front of everybody. That's great for "learning". I don't remotely understand why this crap from supposed adults should be tolerated or should be allowed to drive a kid away from something he/she wants to play. We're not talking about Major Juniors, high school/NCAA here. The competition and coaching gives plenty of chance for a kid to learn how to deal with bad behavior as he/she grows up. We don't need the lessons coming from moronic parents.

Or get more involved in the current league and bring about change. Be warned, either way it’s going to take a lot of hard work on your part and it typically doesn’t pay well. And no matter how hard you try to do things the right way, there are going to be some who will disparage you and your league for any number of different reasons.

I’d happily give your league a shot if I had any more kids.

the culture. Maybe what you suggest is the answer - not that many parents have the time to undertake that sort of grassroots organizational effort. The fix, of course, is for leagues to ban idiot parents who are less mature than their kids and are living out their own frustrated dreams through children. I know all about what it takes - in youth hockey, anyway. There's something wrong with a system in which officials, coaches, and kids are dealing with this crap when all anybody wants is for the kids to have fun playing a game they like and learning. I know of one league that finally just decided that parents are limited to drop off and pick up. Pretty sad.

You make it sound so easy. We’ll just get rid of the “frustrated dreamers.”

Who will be the arbiter of frustrated dreamers in your fantasy league? And what happens if the arbiter himself goes off the rails? What if there isn’t consensus on who the reasonable parent is and who the frustrated dreamer coach is?

Here is the answer. There is no “fix.” Learn to live with the fact that there is going to be some bad behavior. It’s part of the game and part of the learning experience. Granted, parents throwing haymakers on the field crosses a line and is much easier to distinguish whose behavior warrants expulsion/banning and probably more punishment beyond the authority of anyone in the league. But those situations are very rare...most of what you deal with is much more gray.

Sometimes frustrated dreamer coaches learn through experience to grow out of that phase. Are you going to ban a coach in season one as soon as you determine that he meets your definition of such? Is he a bad person for having volunteered and then forgotten in a certain situation that he was an adult now and not the kid he was 15 or 20 years ago? I could go on and on with “what ifs” that I have personally experienced as player, coach, parent, league administrator, etc.

Why? Why should be accept insanely stupid behavior? No, I'm not going to normalize it. I'm not going to stop getting pissed about about rageaholic parents ruining little league for kids who can do nothing but stand by helplessly.

we have an awful lot of work to do. You seem intent on somehow defending or deflecting from adults who act like juveniles about kids' sports. Don't assume I haven't personally experienced bad behavior in sports, because if you do you'll be dead wrong. You really think that parents throwing haymakers over a kids' game "crosses the line" and isn't just a valuable learning moment for the kids? We're making progress. In the meantime, the "frustrated dreamers" I'm referring to are the parents who cannot act like adults or role models in connection with their kids' sports. You think I'm in some negligible minority on this? Wrong again.

In fact, the players were terrible sports who used to trash talk each other during the games. Parents yelled at the umpires from the sidelines.

I was 9 years old and I realized that I disliked organized baseball.

The kids absolutely heckled the shit out of each other. It was bad.

I honestly don't remember my parents ever going to one of my baseball games (football yes, but not baseball). I'm sure they did, but just as often they dropped me off or I walked to the field. It definitely wasn't as crazy (in my experience) on the parent side as it is today.