Guest Opinion: Sweltering Phillies game no place for babies
It's a Saturday evening, we are in the middle of a heat wave, I'm watching the Phillies baseball game on TV, and I'm totally appalled at what I'm seeing. Not that the Phillies are losing at home, but I'm totally dismayed and angered that parents insist on torturing their infant children by mandating they attend a sporting event designed for adults and kids — in 98-degree heat. I wish the owners of our sporting venues would establish rules banning children under a certain age from attending their complexes. Kids indeed belong at professional sporting events. Infants and babies do not.
A baby is not enjoying the event. Aside from the "you never know what could happen" safety elements, the sheer fright factor to the baby during the grand slam, the winning puck to the net, or the winning touchdown on the field should be of concern to any responsible parents, as should the possibility of bodily injury that could easily occur during the raucous celebration. It's obvious that some parents are more concerned about their own glory and gratification.
I simply could not take my eyes off a set of parents sitting behind home plate that Saturday night with their infant child in obvious distress, trying to contend with the dangerous heat, which was in the mid-90s, and the lengthy duration of a baseball game. How they can sleep at night after subjecting their child to such an event is beyond me.
Paul White lives in Croydon.
This article originally appeared on The Intelligencer: Guest Opinion: Sweltering Phillies game no place for babies
