A snack bar is a favorite place for spectators during a game. We made some good money for our program when selling snacks and soda. Players can even indulge between the first and second games of a doubleheader. I have had many hotdogs and Snickers bars between games, but not much during a game. We were playing Mountain Vista at their place and they had the snack bar open during the game. As a rule, teams chase the foul balls that fly out over their side of the field. Kids take turns and it just becomes a habit of the game. We weren’t doing that well but it was a fun game and the kids were learning the challenge of playing on a field that is on top of a hill and the wind issues. There was a foul ball that flew over our dugout during an early inning. The player goes to get it and it takes him a while. I am not thinking anything of it until I hear the whole dugout murmuring. I look back to the field and then back at the dugout. When I look back the entire team was on the opposite side of the dugout from me. Will was our other coach and he saunters down to me and pointed to the kid coming back in with the all and a bag of skittles. I move to the far end of the dugout and the team now moves to the opposite end again. They were waiting for me to blow!
I summon him with my wagging finger. He comes to me and I quickly and abruptly hold out my hand. He hangs his head and hands over the skittles. Nothing is said for the rest of the game. The players and Will avoid me for the remainder of the game and the bus ride home. When we got back to the school I see his mother there to pick him up. I head over to her car and hand her the skittles. She asked what these were for but I just told her to ask her son.
Fast forward to the end of the season banquet. The mom comes up and thanks me but does confess that she is glad the season is over. I asked why and she said she can get the skittles off of her TV. I had completely forgotten about the incident because it was seven or eight weeks earlier. She said the skittles from that game have been sitting on her TV since the game and she wouldn’t let him have them until the end of the season. That is a parent that gets it. I have never had a kid go to the snack bar since but I will never forget the player that was called skittles until the day he graduated