Clay Travis
Over the weekend, the worst person you know's favorite radio host, Clay Travis, got the old heave-ho at his kid's baseball game. We know this because Travis, the lawyer-just-ask-him turned sports-talk host turned Rush Limbaugh replacement, went on one of his various grifts content platforms to talk about it.
Travis, a six-time Best of Nashville winner somehow, seems very pleased with himself about it — which is the opposite reaction you would expect from a grown-up human being who has functioned in society for more than 40 years and has multiple degrees from accredited institutions. If you are a completist, by all means, watch the whole thing yourself.
First, let's tackle some things here. Why is it necessary to inform us that the umpire took a 10-minute bathroom break between innings? Does this add anything of value to the story, or does Travis just want his fans to connect the dots that this umpire was a secret Clintonista malefactor receiving umpiring instructions from George Soros or possibly hiding Hunter Biden's laptop in the restroom like Clemenza stashing the gun at the Louis? The mind boggles, but let's assume, generously, Travis is telling the truth and not exaggerating the length of this intermission. Isn't it possible the umpire had been eating ballpark food all day? Ahem. Anyway.
The gist is that the umpire called Travis' son out for batter interference for impeding the opposing catcher's attempt at throwing out a runner trying to steal third. Travis claims to have attended hundreds of Little League games and plenty of college and major league games but says he's never — NEVER! — seen such a call. He further notes, presumably as a proffer that this isn't just sour grapes and that the umpire was bad at his job, that players on the other team were called out for slinging the bat. Travis further alleges he's never seen such!
Travis is either being hyperbolic about the number of games he's attended or is heaping up some terminological inexactitude. First, the bat slinging. Sure, some umpires (usually ones who have been on the wrong end of a slung chunk of aluminum at some point) are more hardass about it than others. In some organizations, it's a warning and then an ejection. In others, it's an out. (In everything it's an out if it's slung into the field of play and interferes with a defensive player.) It happens a lot, and a lot more these days given the propensity of big leaguers to do the fling after hitting homers and kiddos acting like their heroes, as kiddos will do.
Batter interference, which is what really got Travis' beard-dander a-flyin', is not, as he might soon assert, some wild-ass liberal conspiracy cooked up by Chuck Schumer and Colin Kaepernick in the past six months. It's been around since forever, and it gets called fairly frequently, particularly on throws down to third and particularly in younger age brackets where the batters aren't always sure what to do. A lot of times, the poor kid at the plate will know he needs to give the catcher a chance to make the play and in his effort to avoid getting called for interference, ends up interfering. Tough break, bud. You're out.
We don't know the exact circumstances of this particular play, and interference can be ticky-tack for sure, but all of the calls Travis got so amped about are not, y'know, beyond the realm of possibility. That's the best thing about baseball: There's always a chance you'll see something you've never seen before.
Of course, if the call was right or wrong or the rule was misapplied or misinterpreted (in youth leagues, umpires can be certified by any number of organizations who may have subtle differences for different age groups, and it's not outrageous to suggest that maybe the ump got this one wrong) is irrelevant, as is Travis' assertion that the play was "significant." My friend, there is nothing "significant" about a Sunday game in an early-summer travel ball tournament for 11-year-olds. I promise that Tim Corbin, Billy Beane and the Ghost of Branch Rickey were not in the stands, offer in hand for Travis fils.
And frankly, it's not terribly relevant that Travis lost his temper, dropped some F-bombs from the stands and got tossed. Everyone has bad days. It was hot. Perhaps, like our poor unnamed umpire, Travis had been feasting on ballpark food all day. Plus, it's your kid, and if there is a perceived injustice against the progeny, sometimes you lose sight of things. We all have blind spots with our kids, and with Travis, one seems to be thinking well-intentioned if esoteric rules don’t apply to his children. Nobody's perfect, least of whom Travis. (There's a whole profitable Internet cottage industry based around Clay Travis being wrong.) Is it best if youth sports parents do their job (their job is to get the kid there, give the kid water and cheer like Arn Anderson does in the Ric Flair "Fire me!" video)? Yes. If a call needs ... let's say, clarification, let the coach handle it in the majority of circumstances. (The few times not to wait for a coach is if there is an injury danger that is imminent.) I've been around youth sports my whole life — as a particularly mediocre player and as a coach's son and now as a parent — and few things cause me the same level of reflected anxiety as watching a parent show their ass to the extent the official finds it necessary to send them on their way.
So of course, Travis, chastened, cooled off for awhile, discussed with his kid why what dad did was wrong and apologized to (at the least) the coach of his kid's team, right?
Oh, beautiful naive innocent reader, were it thus!
No, no, Travis instead took it to the internet, not to say, "Hey I lost my cool during a tween baseball game this weekend and I feel bad about it," but to instead double down on his ass-ery, castigating the umpire with the sort of righteous indignation that is perhaps best suited for, um, well, pretty much every other circumstance aside from "I disagreed with an umpire at a child's sports game and got kicked out and I am extremely proud of myself."
Travis, as is his wont, says he is simply saying what everyone thinks: that paid umpires, as professionals, should be held to exacting standards. This is, of course, an absolutely bonkers thing to say about officiating in a game being played by preteens. The umpire in question, according to Travis (who may not be the most reliable narrator on earth), was in his mid-40s, so at least he didn't go off on some poor teenager trying to save up for whatever it is teens are saving up for these days. I assume TikTok accessories and BTS NFTs or something.
Umpires working youth sports are not professionals, and particularly if they are older, they are doing it because they want to stay around the game they love and help kids out. Anybody who played sports as a kid knows exactly the kind of people I am talking about. Heck, you might even remember their names. (For my Hendersonville OGs, I am talking about Mr. Bob and Tom Battle, among others.) The last thing they want to deal with is a parent who thinks they know the rules (usually these parents will assert they Have Read the Rulebook; they, unless they are massive nerds [coughs uncomfortably], have not) dropping obscenities from the stands.
And, boy howdy, they really don't want to deal with said parent being someone who has a massive platform and who doesn't have the good sense to know when to be ashamed of himself. We can and will and have made fun of state Rep. Jeremy Faison for the attempted pantsing of a high school basketball referee, but to the Republican's credit, he owned up almost immediately, rather charmingly said he "lost his junk" and was "bad wrong" and said he was going to find the ref and apologize.
What he didn't do was go on the floor of the House and insist he did the right thing.
This story has gotten plenty of traction, and the video of Travis' rant plenty of views that he, being an inveterate hustler, is very proud of, because the ad revenue algorithm doesn't differentiate between hate-watches and love-watches.
And by and large, thank God, most people rightly seem to recognize that Travis isn't anywhere in the same time zone as having done the grown-up thing.
This all boils down to the repellant worldview that the Clay Travises of the world have: that other people only have value to the extent they can offer you something you want, be it a call (really, a no-call) in your kid's game or, for example, an investigation into the family member of a political rival. You can earn their respect or, say, much needed foreign and military aid, if you simply do what they want.
And this is all made worse by the view, frequently held in common, that the professionally shameless have, which is that all attention is good, that being talked about in any context is valuable, because your ego must constantly be fed. "Love my haters" and all that sociopathic nonsense.
Of course, I've given him the attention he so richly needs, so I'm as guilty as the next guy.
Look, parenting is hard, and I genuinely believe that most every parent, including Travis, is trying their best to be the best they can for their kid. But as Gordon Lightfoot told us, heroes often fail. But when we do fall short, the least we can do is — I can't believe I'm gonna say this — be more like Faison than Travis. Kids, like everyone, learn a lot more from failure than from success, but only if someone is willing to teach them how to correct their mistakes instead of proudly doubling down on them.
