Playing First Base: Marty McFly

I had a Back to the Future moment this weekend in a church league softball tournament.

In the great film trilogy Back to the Future, the main character Marty McFly is fairly level-headed and is effective at making decisions and navigating his way through trouble. He does have one Achilles heel, however. If anyone accuses him of being "yellow," or "a chicken," no matter how stupid and foolish the other individual is, Marty feels the need to prove his manhood and courage at great risk to himself. This weakness of his causes him a great deal of trouble across the 3 films.

I mention this because I feel like I've figured out what my Marty McFly weakness is. If anyone questions my integrity, I usually get demonstrably angry. I remember when I was a junior in high school, a baseball coach of mine who I actually really respect questioned my integrity in terms of effort or heart on the diamond after a particularly rough inning. I then engaged in an extended shouting match with said coach, resulting in me getting taken out of the game. It was a proud moment for Mom, I know. I've had others question my integrity in various ways as a teacher or coach, and each time that has also gotten me worked up. Today I got worked up again.

For any player who is deemed injured in some way, this league permits a "pinch runner" to run for them. Anyway, I was standing on second base today and a female player from our team walked. We sent out a pinch runner, since she is pregnant and doesn't want to risk contact with any overzealous church softball all-stars living out their glory days. At this point I hear the shortstop mumble, "She can run. They got to cheat to win." I got pissed. Marty McFly pissed. I turned and looked at him and said, "What?!" He tried to ignore me. I demanded once again, "What?!" He then asked why she couldn't run, and I angrily let him know she was pregnant and that he should just shut up, play the game, and quit accusing us of cheating.

What's dumb is that this guy is most likely an idiot. I know this because we had played this team two nights before, and I my first thought then was that he is most likely an idiot. His actions during the tournament did nothing to change that assessment.

But now I'm the idiot. I got pissed off about what an idiot said or thought about either me or players on my team. I attempted to prove my manhood by scowling and making sharp comments. I bet I changed his mind. . .

Looking at the event in retrospect, part of me thinks that I did the right thing - I defended my team's honor. Reality, though, says that's horse crap. I let pride dictate my actions. Now this guy is probably blogging about how I'm most likely an idiot (albeit an idiot who smoked a homerun against his team and won by ten runs - take that, tough guy).

At the end of the 3rd and final Back to the Future film, Marty finally ignores a challenge of his courage by some idiots to show his growth. That decision saves his life. I wonder when the end of my 3rd movie will be.