You Can't Have a Solid Foundation Without F-U-N

OK. So this guy in Philadelphia catches a foul ball and hands it to his daughter and she throws it back onto the field…

… and because his reaction was to laugh it off and give her a hug, rather than scream and yell, it becomes a national story. Heck, the family was on the Today show this morning.

It’s supposed to be a “feel-good” tale, but it just makes me angry. Why? Because we shouldn’t be surprised that a father reacts this way – that’s the way a father should react. What? Were we expecting him to scream and yell and throw the little girl over the railing after the ball? Evidently, we were. At least that’s the only reason I can see making this story newsworthy at all – that it was something out of the ordinary. But at a baseball game, it really isn’t. People can take their families to a baseball game and relax and have a good time.

You know where decent behavior would be unexpected? In the stands of an NFL game. Why? Because by regimenting their sport so much, fining players for any show of emotion, they’ve taken the “fun” out of the equation. And by making sports “serious” you encourage the fans to take things way too seriously as well. Take a look at this “over-the-top celebration” which resulted in a penalty - and fines to all the Philadelphia Eagles involved.

The only thing offensive about this video is the cheesy music.

Now compare that with this Milwaukee Brewers game-winning display of emotion and tell me which environment you’d rather showcase to your kids.