About thirty years ago my brother coached a little league baseball team. I've watched my kids play T-ball and little league. What's so fucking important about that? Only that I speak from experience when I say that much of the time the game isn't about the kids at all, it's all about the parents and what they want. I could not believe the tempers my brother would describe for me, the way the parents would push their children, and fight amongst themselves over the proceedings. I saw it first hand while attended my kid's games.

Could this be a result? Some kid killed another with a baseball bat yesterday after a game. They were arguing about a place in line at the snack bar.


PALMDALE, California (CNN) -- A 13-year-old boy accused of fatally striking a 15-year-old friend with a bat after a youth baseball game was charged Thursday as a juvenile with murder, authorities said.

Witnesses said the younger boy's team had just lost its first game of the season, and he was getting in line at a snack bar. Some witnesses said there was a dispute between the teens over their place in line; others said Rourke teased the suspect over the loss.

Tony Trevino, who coached the team that won the game in question, said he arrived moments afterward.

"When I came around to the snack bar, the first child that I came upon was the suspect. He was distraught, in shock," Trevino told CNN.

The boy was with his parents and no longer had the bat in his hand. Trevino said he then saw Rourke on the ground. Another coach was an off-duty police officer trying to bring order to the scene, Trevino said, and others tried to resuscitate Rourke, who died at the hospital.

"This is a story of two boys, one razzing the other [and] the other child not able to deal with the social situation that was presented to him at that time," Trevino said. "This is a good kid that made a bad decision. He was a good athlete, a good student."

Trevino wondered why none of the parents or older children intervened when the two youths were arguing: "How could that happen?"

The Pony League takes children of all ages and abilities. It is not considered an ultra-competitive league like some youth baseball organizations. The teens' league suspended all games after the incident.

I like the way they threw that in there, "it is not considered ultra-competitive."