It’s not unusual for parents to coach their children in youth sports. Some of them even go on to coach their kids in high school.
At Sunday’s Agganis All-Star softball game, a 5-5 tie, the parent-child sports relationship reached another level with something that may have never before happened in the 61-year history of the Agganis Games – a parent officiating a game in which her child was playing.
The highlight of the game was a long home run from Beverly’s Mya Perron, the MVP of the North squad.
The person with the best view of the blast?
Her mother Katie, the home-plate umpire.
Paul Halloran, executive director of the Agganis All-Star games, said that in his 25 years of running the games, he cannot recall when, or if, a parent ever served as an official in a game that his or her child was playing in.
“I’m sure we had coach (and) player, in fact we had it today,” Halloran said. “But official and player? I can’t say it’s never happened and I can’t recall it off the top of my head. I can only say that at a minimum, it is highly unusual and highly unlikely that it has ever happened.”
It was the first time Mya played in a game called by her mother. She admitted it was “a little weird” and that, during her first at bat, a routine fly ball to right, there was a little “chirping” on the part of her mother.
“I told her I was going to start her off with a full count,” Katie said. “I knew I would probably tease her a little. She doesn’t like to make eye contact with me too much because she’s in the game and just wants to play, so whenever I am base coaching, I try to step off. When she gets up to bat, I try to remove myself from the game.”
Be careful what you wish for, Mom. After Mya crossed the plate following her homer, she didn’t stop; she continued to the dugout where she was mobbed by her teammates.
“She just ran right by me!” Katie said. “I wanted to give her a high-five but she just ran right to her teammates.”
When asked before the game what the strike zone was going to be for Mya, Katie said she planned to call the game as she always does.
“The strike zone is the strike zone. I’m not going to change my strike zone,” she said. “Every umpire establishes the strike zone in that game and the kids have to adjust to each umpire’s view, and no one should complain about it ever.”
But Mya wasn’t really buying into it – nor was she willing to wait for the perfect pitch. In her second at bat, she jumped all over North reliever Kristi Shane’s first pitch, driving it over the left-fielder’s head into deep left field.
“I know she likes to call them high in the zone, so I wasn’t going to wait around for one of those to bite me in the butt,” said Mya, who plans to play volleyball and softball at UMass Boston.
After Katie mildly protested, saying she calls the “book strike zone,” Mya backed off a bit, saying “I go with whatever the umps say.”
“She just wants a ride home,” Katie said, laughing.
Katie said that she refrained from calling high school games until Mya had graduated. She coached mostly junior varsity and a few varsity games in an effort to avoid potential conflict.
“I know many of these children and Mya is probably friends with half of them,” Katie said. “They are here to have fun and it’s their last hoorah before they all go off to college.”
Katie said she and Mya discussed the strike zone prior to the game.
“I just told her to swing the bat,” Katie said.
And that’s exactly what Mya did.
