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.