Padecky: Parents, fans at Maria Carrillo baseball game fracas are poor role models

They looked like fools, but they didn’t care.

They were poor role models for their sons who were playing, but that didn’t cross their minds at the moment.

They would be so embarrassed to be later identified publicly, but they were too drunk with emotion.

Two Saturdays ago, Maria Carrillo fans — we should call them “hostiles” for clarity — did a most excellent job at expressing their anger at a baseball game at Petaluma High School. It was such a convincing performance, someone called the Petaluma police, who arrived to escort two umpires safely to their vehicles.

The umpires left the field to a barrage of screaming f-bombs, with one person taking the anger to a disturbing level — “I’ll see you later in the parking lot!”

A lawsuit against the umpires has been threatened. Their crimes? Unclear at this point, unless disagreeing with the home plate umpire on what was a ball and what was a strike is a prosecutable offense. There also was a bang-bang play at second base that did not favor Carrillo. And maybe the umpires rolled their eyes when they shouldn’t have. Or maybe shrugged at an inappropriate time. Hard to tell what’s worth all that flame.

Jim Selvitella, the Petaluma coach, understood immediately this was a teachable moment. He took his team to the left-field foul line and told his players to watch the kerfuffle.

“Twenty years from now,” Selvitella said, “I want you to remember this when you are coaching your own sons. This is baseball ugly. This is a life lesson.”

Coaches and parents are teachers. Just as we watch our children to see how they are doing, how they are acting, how and why they make their decisions, they in turn are watching their parents and their coaches for the same reasons.

If a parent is hurling an f-bomb at a high school baseball umpire, what does his teenager think? That it’s OK to lose your composure? That whoever made you unhappy and displeased, they need to be punished with language that would get one thrown out of church, a movie, a restaurant, the work place? Would that parent use that kind of language to discipline their kid, especially if that kid struck out in the bottom of the ninth with the winning run on second base?

What if the adults are not mature adults but, at that flashpoint, become barroom bullies?

“Son, lemme explain to you why I lost my mind.”

Now that’s an explanation worth hearing. Did any of those parents have that conversation with their son after the game? That would be worth knowing.

Unfortunately, what happened in Petaluma is not a rarity. Google “Parents Behaving Badly.” In 0.63 seconds, 11,500,000 hits will appear. Unfortunately many of these hits will show good people embarrassing themselves.

No doubt otherwise high functioning, mature and stable adults were in the Carrillo stands that day. Many probably have well-paying jobs. Some even may have raised their voice only to get the cat to use the litter. Some may never had even a traffic ticket. Some could be your friends. Maybe some of them are.

Yet, in the moment, with their kid in the middle of drama, parents lose everything they purport to be. Sports does that to us, doesn’t it? Sports, high school or professional, exists second by second. It is the unspoken genius of the industry. Nothing makes us forget so quickly who we are than that Trout home run, that 40-foot Curry jumper, that Brady touchdown pass with three ticks left on the clock.

That said, is it too much to ask to stay grounded in front of your kid at a high school baseball game? That Saturday in Petaluma, it was. Compare that Saturday with that Sunday when Jimmy Garoppolo threw that incomplete pass with 1:39 left in Super Bowl LIV. The 49ers came that close to winning a Super Bowl.

I’m guessing a few buckets of popcorn were thrown at the television that Sunday, along with a few colorful expressions fueled by an adult beverage. Occurring in the privacy of one’s home. Appropriate, considering.

For discussion purposes, let’s assume those two umpires in Petaluma didn’t know third base from a pillow. Let’s assume they didn’t know the rules, that they were winging it. Let’s assume the Carrillo fans had every right to be upset, to scream their disgust. The umpires botched the game. The umpires had something personal against Carrillo; they were exacting revenge.

Let’s say all that is true.

So?

Who among us has NOT been treated unfairly by a boss? For no good reason? Felt targeted? Unappreciated? Underpaid? Ignored? Unloved? Taken for granted? Fired for spite?

“It’s part of life,” Selvitella said.

Stuff happens and adults find a way to cope. It’s how we make sense of it all, to walk away from the dark days. Life is that challenge.

That’s what people do, in real life.

High school baseball is not real life. It’s an activity.

It is also a way to frame the real world for someone soon to be entering it. Yes, son, life is unfair. It happens. Yep, the umpire missed that pitch. By a mile. Blind as a bat. It was a strike all right. Guy couldn’t find home plate with a map.

Oh well. Son, life will get a lot of more complicated for you. You will face adversity. Just like that blown call, you will have to learn how to deal with it. Through the good days and the bad days. That’s how we survive and deepen our character.

So throwing out an f-bomb? Looking for someone to beat up? Somebody’s gotta pay?

Would you be proud to take that approach? Would you be proud to have someone taking a video of you on their cellphone? Screaming? Cursing? Veins a-popping? Would you want people who never met you to know you like that?

Would you volunteer to be so publicly humiliated? Would it feel worth it? And what would you tell your kid?

To comment write to bobpadecky@gmail.com.