This is my younger son's first year playing Little League baseball. I volunteered to help coach his team primarily because he's deaf and he needs an interpreter. So it was with some interest that I noted his responses to a survey on violence in sports that appeared in this month's issue of Sports Illustrated for Kids.

The survey asked questions such as, "Have you seen out-of-control adults at any of your games?" and "What kind of bad behavior have you seen?"

My son answered, "Yes," to the first question and then he checked the boxes for "Parents yelling at kids," and "Coaches yelling at officials or kids" to describe what he actually saw.

In answer to the question, "Which emotion do you feel most when adults misbehave at a game?" he chose 'fear'.

These are pretty telling responses coming from a deaf child, who can only see that an adult is upset and out of control by observing body language.

The Majors--that's the division in which he played--is treated like Major League Baseball in my hometown. Games are played at night under the lights on a perfectly manicured baseball diamond. The player's names are announced over a P.A. system.

It's a beautiful sight when the lights come on at twilight and the umpire yells, "Play ball!" But compared to my experiences playing Little League baseball as a kid some forty years ago, it's a bit of a pressure cooker.

Especially when the best intentions of parents are forgotten in the passion of the moment-when a coach forgets that baseball is, well, just a game after all and these are children and the main object is to have fun and teach them how to play by the rules.

Several times a close play at home plate or a dispute over an obscure rule resulted in an out-of-control coach acting like a child, and a teenage umpire assuming the role of the adult and putting him in his place.

On one occasion, two coaches got into a screaming match. Both were ejected from the game, along with several people from the bleachers who continued to jaw at the umpire after he tossed the two coaches.

And all the while, little eyes were watching.

I may not know all of the strategy behind coaching Little League baseball.  But as a licensed soccer coach, I have learned what should be emphasized in the lives of ten to twelve year old children when they play sports.

Winning isn't at the top of that list. I'm not inferring that winning should be relegated to obscurity. It just should not be emphasized as the sole focus of the game.

At this age, children need to learn the basic skills of whatever sport it is they are pursuing.  They need to learn good sportsmanship and the concept of team play in a non-pressure setting where having fun is emphasized.

Kids who repeatedly come back to the bench sobbing because they struck out or were caught trying to steal a base aren't going to play baseball much longer. None of us continues to do what we have grown to hate.

But baseball can also teach kids something else, about the broader picture of life where you don't always win. Sometimes we are thrown an unexpected curve ball or thrust into an unfair situation about which we can do little to change our circumstances. Sometimes we have to swallow our pride and accept defeat gracefully.

I want to see the kids on my team come running off the field smiling and laughing, not blubbering under their breath things like, "I'm a jerk," or "I stink at baseball." I want them to have fun and in so doing, cultivate a passion for the game that can lead them to play it in high school and maybe even college.

I promise I'll try to teach them the techniques and the rules and perhaps they'll learn something about life too along the way. And maybe we'll even win and come in first or second place.

King Solomon wrote: "A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken." The wise king may not have played baseball, but he understood that discouragement was a hindrance to achievement.

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com. Visit our website at www.amyfound.org.