Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for April 29, 2020

Mistakes were made.

God, this storyline hits me so hard. You won’t believe how many times I’ve had people insult me and call me stupid for making a simple and honest mistake due to me not being familiar with the task I was asked to do. Even my own family has thrown hurtful comments at me for my screwups. I still have panic attacks even when I make small mistakes because I dread my peers rubbing it in my face what a screwup I am.

Also, was the kid asking if he could hit Calvin with the bat supposed to be a joke? Because it’s not a very funny one.

and so comes the sour moment

Maybe if the hitting team had cameras in center field that showed the catcher’s signs to the pitcher…

Is this why he is better at Calvin ball? Or is this why He invented it?

Mistakes were made. Big deal! Just wait until they play Calvinball and then see who goofs up.

Unfortunately Calvin’s teammates are a bunch of budding Todd Marinoviches (Google him if you don’t get the reference).

This is partly Mr. Lockjaw’s fault for not noticing that Calvin was still in the outfield.

Even the pros make mistakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtG-fXfKnI

Calvin’s team is just as guilty, they never noticed Calvin didn’t come in at the switch of the inning.

This just proves that all kids weren’t cut out to play sports.

This one always sticks out to me. I was pretty bad at sports growing up (I was usually the youngest kid in class by a considerable ways, which meant I was much smaller), and the other kids were completely merciless about it. The stuff here about the other kids hating Calvin for costing them a point really comes off as true-to-life, and was probably experienced by Watterson himself.

The notion of “yay, team sports are rad!” is so common in fiction that it’s very rare we ever get this other side- the notion that it makes a lot of people into over-competitive, verbally-abusive tools.

Life will unfortunately teach you that even when you think you’ve got a prize catch, there’s a catch!

Sports can be fun when people don’t take them too seriously! Unfortunately that’s not going to happen…

The reason I dislike baseball today is due to the way I was treated by the other kids when I was a boy.

Still, It was a nice catch.

Well, for the record, it was a good catch. As to the insults and all that, this is how thick skins are built and how fights are avoided with motor mouth drunks at barbecues in the future.

technically calvins right

So umm where’s the coach? Isn’t he paying attention? How in the world does he not know Calvin is still on the field?

I don’t think they’ve ever shown Calvin around other kids like this before, except for Susie and the bully.

Sorry, I’m not liking today’s panel. I realize bullies abound, but a little boy, daydreaming in the outfield . . . (Also, I’m partial to little boys, having had 3 of my own.)

I was at school, in I think Grade 5 (in Australia), and the PE teacher was attempting to teach us rugby league. We started with an exercise in passing, with half of us in a line, facing the other half.

Ball came to me, I turned and passed it…and in the middle of the air, a jerk from the other side ran through the middle, grabbed the ball, and ran on to ‘score’.

The abuse I got from my ‘team’ was incredible.

We weren’t even playing a game, just being taught how to!

That was, thanks to that jerk (who was also quite the jock-bully) the first and last time I ever attempted the sport, and I’ve never had much interest since.

People for the rest of my school years wondered though why I never had much interest in team sports?

Since the coach put Calvin out in left field to forget about him, and since the coach didn’t make sure he was called in with the rest of the team, I think the batter should get a do over.

And then they wonder why so many Americans are obese. Behaviour like this teaches the untalented to hate team sports. If kids were allowed to either do the sport or just get on the track and walk laps for the entire P.E. period, then they could learn that it is movement, not teams, that is important to their health.I remember a story, maybe 20-ish years ago, about a HS teacher who would let kids pay $1 a day to skip P.E. He got fired when he was caught, but I certainly would have paid.

This kind of thing — scoring goal for the wrong side - happens pretty routinely in soccer and ice hockey….. In baseball, not so much. See, Calvin is exceptional. ;)

I’ve got plenty of ‘own goal’ stories.

Oh gawd, that was me….

Another perennial “last kid picked” when I was a child. And our ballfield was on my father’s lot. Which is the only reason I was picked at all.

This would be both coaches and the umpires’ fault. And Calvin catching the fly would not be an out for his team; it would be some kind of interference call, though.

Calvin seems to be a prime candidate for the U.S. MarineCorps when he is 18.

Who was the coach who left Calvin out there?

I believe that this scenario has happened recently in American politics???

I don’t know if they’re being graded since this IS recess (a pretty damn LONG recess if there’s time to play a game of baseball, this should be a gym class) but those 2 kids should be penalized for bad sportsmanship. When I played little league baseball sportsmanship was focused on more than actually being good at the game because WE WERE EIGHT. That’s another thing, Calvin is SIX, BUT I will accept this scenario on the grounds that the character didn’t age over a 10 year run in the comic and this is a thing that a lot of kids do.

Accurate

It’s a little boy with A bat and ball and his Tiger That what today’s strips Base on so sit back andEnjoy it my friends

Nothing for nothing, the two kids in the first panel look like 48 year-old midgets….

And now, kids, what did we learn from all this discussion?

The amazing thing to me, is that I am so much like Calvin. I was always somewhat different than other kids. I’m not really connected to the world, even today as a senior. Four billion years to produce me. Hobbes would say maybe not enough time. First thing I do every day is read Calvin and Hobbes. Then Dilbert, then the Astronomy picture of the day, then CNN, then BBC, then CBC, then the Guardian. By then I’m so depressed I contemplate my own imminent death. Calvin and Hobbes give me hope in a dying world.

…And in the triumphal chariot, behind the Hero stood a Slave, holding a Laurel Wreath above the Hero’s head. And into his ear he whispered a Warning, that All Glory is Fleeting…

Calvin’s Charlie Brown moment