I watched a Major League Baseball game last night. Then things got interesting.

I have no data to present to back up this hypothesis but it feels like constantly calling grown men who play professional sports ‘kids’, particularly baseball, is somehow contributing to the glut of immature beta males in American society. Maybe it’s at least a symptom of the low expectations society has of modern men.

Last night, following the Braves game in which Braves pitcher Jacob Webb unintentionally hit a Mets batter in the face with a 94 mph fastball, I mentioned to an Atlanta sportswriter on Twitter that I thought it was odd that he said of Webb, who is 27, “Things
like this are really tough.
Hope the kid is able to
get things sorted out.”

He took considerable umbrage with my question of “kid?” Even when I mentioned that he was 27 and hardly a kid, he continued to sort of berate me for daring to mention it, asking me if I was really going to engage in an argument over semantics in such a situation. I attempted to make my point, unsuccessfully, while several others took at least a small degree of joy in watching the guy mock me, which is fine since I’m not a kid and I can certainly handle it.

Well, today I’ve thought about the exchange even more and I’ve wondered to myself, until now, obviously, that if our insistence on calling grown men ‘kids’ has indirectly encouraged them to act like kids and act in ways that kids do. Pair something small like this with constant attacks on what big media refers to as toxic masculinity and the endless mockery of men for mansplaining, manspreading (a necessity of basic human anatomy), and a hundred other things they deem wrong with men and boys and maybe you’ve created a Mulligan stew of negativity where men shirk their responsibilities and behave like selfish children.

Whatever the case, men ceasing to accept their traditional roles in society as fathers and husbands and sons isn’t good for anyone. Traditional, and Biblical I might add, manhood is neither evil nor toxic. In fact, I’ll posit that it’s good for society when it’s lived out as it should be. Maybe it’s because we expect so little from some men, professional athletes, perhaps, that the world seems to be heading to hell in a handbasket in so many ways.

Whatever. I’m probably overthinking things like I usually do. I’m good at it, though, so why not. The Braves stink this year, by the way. Crazy kids.