10 Symptoms of the Pitcher’s Parent

Nausea, dizziness, loss of vision, diarrhea, stomach bleeding – these symptoms may become more intense later in the season or further into the bracket of the tournament
Severe fingernail loss – Parents of pitchers don’t always chew their fingernails. But when they do, they prefer to chew them down to the nubs.
Uncontrolled pacing, gum chewing, sunflower seed eating, cigarette smoking or vaping – This is game day and you need to do something while worrying about your kid pitching
You throw away nearly-new cleats because there’s a hole in the toe – You wish you knew a kid with the same size foot as your daughter’s, who pitches with the opposite hand. That way you could split the cost of cleats.
You have multiple bruises on your shins – Sometimes you can see the marks that the seams leave on your skin. The bruising goes up when your child learns a new pitch.
Consistent numbness in your left hand – Catching all those pitches has a side-effect. But having feeling in your glove hand isn’t that important anyway.
High cell phone data usage – You send frantic messages or emails to your child’s pitching coach to get analysis of what’s going wrong. This chews up data like a teenager on that stupid lip-sync app that has thankfully become uncool.
You feel your kid is responsible for winning or losing the game / You feel everyone else’s kid is responsible for winning or losing the game – Parents of pitchers can have one of these feelings or waffle back and forth between the two. There’s no logic to it. It’s purely emotional.
You wish you could draw an ‘air’ strike zone for umpires – Why can’t they wear contact lenses with a rectangle to show the strike zone?
You prefer sitting on a bucket instead of a chair – the lid is already shaped to your ass