Loud Mouth

It's already time to practice for Youth Baseball. Seems early. But I think that is just because of the New England factor. The first practice was cold. Clear skies, but cold. With all the rain we have had, the ground was sopping wet. But you know what? We were playing baseball. And that makes everything all right.
It was shaping up as a very good practice. RJ decided to coach this year. I told him that I would help him out if I could. RJ still need another assistant or two, so he emailed the parents to solicit another volunteer or two. Well, one other Dad stepped up. And the three of us got the kids started. We got them running to keep them warm. We stretched. And then we began to teach some of the fundamentals. RJ was running a good program.
Then we got a glimpse of what is wrong with kids sports in this country nowadays. With about twenty five minutes left in practice, one of the other Dads showed up to watch practice. Well RJ started the kids on a drill to work on cut-off throws. At this point it was just RJ and me. We each had a line of 5 kids throwing and pivoting. The first time through, the kids did ok. But the second time the kids struggled a bit. As RJ was giving some instruction, the sideline Dad started shouting, "The kids are too close together. Spread them out." I was stunned at first and then just looked over at RJ. He turned over his should and just said calmly, " the kids are having trouble making throw this close." To which the Loud Mouth said very loudly again, "they're too close! Get them farther apart." But RJ and I just shrugged it. RJ and I split up the kids to start another drill and RJ had Loud Mouth's son in his group. The entire drill, Loud Mouth was all over his son: "Run faster!" " Stretch it out!" I am willing to admit that his intention may have been encouragement and that it was the first time I had met this boy. I am not familiar with their family dynamics. I am sure the cut-off drill incident left a bad taste in my mouth. But the next episode just did not come across healthy.
After practice Loud Mouth saunters over to RJ and introduces himself. He says that he wants to help out this season and that he had instructed his wife to email RJ about it, but that she hadn't. RJ handled it very well. He thanked him for his interest but said he had enough help at the moment. RJ said we would see what happens later in the season. Then RJ said he didn't appreciate being contradicted in front of the kids. I am fairly certain it left Loud Mouth speechless. I kept within earshot in case it went badly. I wanted to make sure the situation didn't escalate to one of those stupid news stories where parents get into it during Little League. And fortunately, no blood, no foul.