The (not) Great Gazoo

I ran into some interesting and not necessarily appealing characters this past baseball season at my son's JV baseball games. One of the not so appealing and actually repugnant characters was the Great Gazoo. That's not actually his name. It's the name we gave him. A group of the parents named him that after watching him on third base during the game. His oversized head in his oversized batting helmet and his lack of body proportion in relation to head size conjured up the image. Gazoo.

He was on the small side physically and even more so mentally. The first indication we got was when the kids on his bench started dropping the F-bomb during the game. We parents said Whoah, boys, not appropriate! The coach turned around to us and blamed his kids' PARENTS. 

He was horrible. He was antagonistic to the umps, he berated his players and he made the boys run the hills after losing to our team. He talked trash about our kids while coaching third base. He cursed his kids out after losing to the team. We were told after that they had been undefeated up to that point and NEVER expected to lose to our team. Winning was pretty sweet that day for our kids; sweeter for the parents maybe even than for the kids. 

He didn't limit his nasty behavior to High School East. We talked to another coach from another team and he told us Gazoo had quite the reputation in the league. Turns out his dad played major league ball and does private coaching. From what I'm told, his dad is a gentleman and would abhor his son's behavior if he knew of it. 

For those who don't remember Gazoo, he was an alien character in the Flintstones cartoon who was exiled to earth for inventing a doomsday machine. 

East Islip, be afraid for your children. The Great Gazoo is in your midst and he has his finger on the doomsday machine. Run for hills and take your kids with you. 

So, Sue, I've left you hanging long enough. That was the story of the Great Gazoo.