Snack Moms -- At Game Time, Feed Them And They Will Come

NOW THAT SUMMER IS here, I am torn between going to soccer or baseball games.

Don't get me wrong. I don't like watching either game (although I have children playing both sports). I like to go the games because the Snack Moms for the baseball and soccer teams have gotten into a contest over who can bring the best snack.

Snack Moms are key members of the soccer and baseball teams in our neighborhood. I consider them more important than the coaches themselves. Their job title describes what they do: They are in charge of bringing some kind of "snack" to the games.

The word "snack" can mean just about anything from a plastic milk carton filled with warm juice to a full-course meal with knives and forks served on tables with plates. These types of meals are done by Snack Moms who are out of control. They also are the Snack Moms I love to see sign up for the job.

Occasionally you will run into a Snack Dad. He brings a bag of potato chips and a couple of jugs of Coke, usually warm. If the kids are lucky, the Snack Dad will have paper cups. Otherwise the kids pass around the Coke bottle.

Things have changed in kids' sports since the days I played Little League baseball in Everett. In those days, a parent was rarely seen at the baseball park and if one did happen to wander in to see what his kid was doing - or more likely to check to see if he was really playing baseball - that parent wasn't expected to bring anything to drink or eat.

As my coach used to say: "That's why they have drinking fountains at the ballpark, kid." And if you were hungry after the game, you got on your bike and rode home where your mother had placed your dinner in the oven to keep it warm and turned up the oven to 350 degrees. By the time you got home, everything on the plate was baked (including the salad) and had a leathery black crust over it.

Now you can go to a soccer game and see some poor Snack Mom hauling baskets of food across several fields. The eyes in the stands turn from the game being played out to the baskets being laid out.

I prefer fried chicken for a baseball game (the pitcher can put some of the grease on the bill of his hat for that dreaded grease ball) and a good potato salad made with dill pickles, while soccer games demand a tossed green salad with hot soup and warm French bread.

This Snack Mom business started off innocently enough. One of the coaches asked a mother to bring some kind of beverage for the kids after the game. Because we live in a highly organized society where our every move is planned down to the last step, it didn't take long before a computer printout appeared with times and dates under the title of Snack Mom.

The only thing missing was the menu. At first the Snack Moms showed up with simple fare: coolers with juice and doughnuts. Pretty soon the doughnuts were replaced by submarine sandwiches ("It is close to dinner" went the explanation) and sodas.

When the hot dishes started to appear, we were told "This is dinner." It wasn't long before white wine and napkins showed up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that where there is hot food, fathers are sure to follow.

There are some drawbacks to this Snack Mom business. For one thing, when it is the Truly Unpleasant Mrs. Johnston's turn, she used to spend all day working on the food. But the other day, she said she was just going to give muffins to the kids and let the parents take care of themselves.

I'll have to stop her. She is killing my free meal ticket.

Steve Johnston is a reporter for The Seattle Times.