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Hats off to Sports Moms

By Mark Carpenter, The People's Defender, 02/13/20, 9:00AM PST

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Hats off to all of you Moms and Grand-Moms- you are the gears that keep our machines running.

It’s time to give credit where credit is due. Sports Moms are something truly special. It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman and those are true words, but it also could be said that behind every young athlete is a dedicated Sports Mom (or Grandma). I often write here about where I find inspiration for these columns and the fact my own Sports Mom has had a really rough week made me think back to how involved she was in my sports upbringing.

I write a lot about the things that my Dad and I did as I was growing up but don’t think for a minute my Mom wasn’t right there too. She’s the one who lit up the jerk Carl Yastrzemski when he refused to sign an autograph in spring training, enough to get her mention and ol’ Yaz some criticism in the next day’s Tampa Tribune. I think she’s still proud of that.

It was Mom who made it to every one of my Knothole baseball games, always keeping that scorebook. I think I’ve finally figured out why my batting average in Knothole was so much higher than it was in high school. Mom will proudly tell you the story of getting thrown out of a Pee-Wee basketball game in some town that ended with a “ville”, I don’t remember which one, or when a referee threatened to toss her from a junior high basketball game. I was the coach then.