No respect
NL umpire Shag Crawford probably summed it up best when he said, "The best thing about umpiring is seeing the best in baseball every day. The cardinal rule of umpiring is to follow the ball wherever it goes. Well, if you watch the ball, you can't help seeing somebody make a great catch... That's what makes umpiring so much fun."
Okay, Little League may be far from the "best" brand of baseball, but as umpire, you do have the best seat in the house. This is my second year umpiring and my first as Umpire in Chief for Esquimalt Little League, so I must be doing something right. Either that, or I'm that "poor sucker" who volunteered for the job nobody wanted.
With two of my kids now fully involved in baseball, I had a choice to make. I've always felt the best way to experience your kids and their love for sports is to get right there on the court/field/rink with them. I guess that's why I've coached minor B baseball, Grade 4/5 basketball and Novice ice hockey the past two years. I'm still helping out on both Emily and Matthew's baseball teams, but I prefer to engage in my latest passion, umpiring. If there can be such a thing as a natural umpire, I guess I'm pretty close:
(1) I'm a rules guy straight from the heart. Probably comes from my navy nuclear propulsion background, where nothing gets done without a procedure and every day you learn another little nuance on how the plant works to add to that swirl of "rules of thumb" flowing through your brain. (2) I'm loud and have no qualms about speaking up in public.
(3) With a background of catching and goaltending, I have no fear of the ball. Sure, a foul ball or missed pitch will find it's way to some spot uncovered by your protection at some point and even a 12 yr old's fastball will leave a mark, but bruises go away in time
(4) I love a good argument. And it doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong (of course the ump is never wrong), I'll find a way to argue my call better than the coach can argue against it. It never fails, I have yet to find a coach that knows that rule book better than I.
Back onto the title of this little missive. You certainly have to have thick skin to strap it on and step behind the plate. Coaches, parents, even players on the bench will always think they have the best view of every play and try and make your calls for you. I've heard some good ones, heard more than my share of moans and groans and had my fill of coaches trying to make up their own rules for how the game should be played. The trick (and hardest thing to come to grips with as an ump) is to ignore as much as possible. When the coach/player/parent decides to make a comment or talk back, you really have to give 'em the benefit of the doubt and tell yourself that the comment is merely one of frustration and not directed at you personally. Now I know better, but if you don't, you'll end up throwing out half the team and clearing the stands of spectators during every game. It's amazing how serious some people will take the "game" of baseball.
I thought I'd leave you with some good examples of some of the ignorance and frustration I deal with on a daily basis. Just a reminder, I don't get paid for this:
1. Opening Day: A young batter steps up for the first time in minor A (first level where kids vice coaches pitch). His heals are on the inside batter's box line and toes just cm from the plate. I warn him he is standing too close, but he ignores me, diving to the dirt twice on pitches that were strikes. In his 2nd at bat, still oblivious to my warnings, he tries to turn from an "inside" pitch and gets hit square on the back of his shoulder, dropping like a rock. Now, good on him, as he gathers himself from the dirt he's putting on a brave face, holding back tears as the coach runs down to assist him. I followed them a few steps up the baseline and stopped the young boy to see how he was doing. When he replied that he was okay, I stepped back, raised my right hand into a fist and rang him up on strike three. He was hit by a pitch nearly right down the middle of the plate. The coach was incredulous and (I assume) his mother began screaming obscenities from the stands. The next time that young lad came to bat, he stood squarely in the middle of the batter's box and I haven't had to warn him about standing too close to the plate in a game since.
2. 9-10 Year Old District Tournament last July. Top 6th in a tie game (6 inning games in Little League) with a runner on 1st. Batters swings and misses at a pitch that glances of his bat directly into the catcher's glove. I make the signal for a "foul tip" and call out "Strike". Meanwhile, the catcher has fallen over backwards in the process of receiving the pitch and the runner takes off to 2nd base. No throw is made and runner makes it to 2nd standing up. I say and do nothing and get in position for the next pitch when the defensive team's coach comes onto the field and proceeds to tell the runner that he has to go back to first because it was a foul ball. The young baserunner doesn't know any better so he proceeds to walk back towards first. I immediately call time and send the runner back to second. the coach is furious and demands to know what I am doing. I calmly try to explain the rule. that a foul tip is the same as a strike and the ball remains live. Runners may advance at their own peril. Coach is having nothing of this and starts a Monty Pythonesque torrent of arguments essentially summing up with the fact that I am dead wrong and that is not what the rule book states. This could have gone on for hours, but I wasn't going to let that happen. I calmly advised him to protest the call if he so strongly believed the call was wrong but that in the interest of proceeding with the game I was not going to continue with the argument at that time. He grudgingly left the field, making a pitching change in the process. It didn't end there, though. Apparantly he went through the rule book while his pitcher warmed up and realized he wasn't going to win any protest and tried to think how he could recover the situation. Just as I was ready to put the ball back in play, out strides our friendly coach, heads straight towards second base to talk with the base ump and then tells our poor baserunner to return to first. Well, this obviously peaked my interest, so I stopped the runner on his way back to first, sent him back to 2nd base and asked the coach what he thought he was doing. Never admitting he was wrong, he proceeded to tell me that because the runner had voluntarily gone back to first [when the opposing coach told him the ball was foul and directed him to return to first btw ] I was incorrect in sending him back to 2nd. I wasn;t going to have any of this, explained to the coach that he cannot deliberately attempt to mislead or distract an opposing player on the field and therefore the runner would stay on second. Our coach blew his top, starting yelling first at me and then at the poor runner standing on second (who proceeded to cry), then chased the boy off 2nd and proceeded to pull the base off of it's mounting, refusing to relinquish it. Needless to say, the coach was tossed, runner stayed on second and scored what ended up to be the winning run one batter later. Honestly, though, what was this man thinking. Someone who should be a role model for his kids, getting so into a little league game that he would embarass himself like that on the field.
Two pieces of advice for would be parents and coaches of ballplayers out there:
(1) It's a game.
(2) You won't ever know the rule book better than the umpire, so unless you're upset with a judgment call, don't bother trying to call the ump on a rule interpretation
"Play Ball!"
Okay, Little League may be far from the "best" brand of baseball, but as umpire, you do have the best seat in the house. This is my second year umpiring and my first as Umpire in Chief for Esquimalt Little League, so I must be doing something right. Either that, or I'm that "poor sucker" who volunteered for the job nobody wanted.
With two of my kids now fully involved in baseball, I had a choice to make. I've always felt the best way to experience your kids and their love for sports is to get right there on the court/field/rink with them. I guess that's why I've coached minor B baseball, Grade 4/5 basketball and Novice ice hockey the past two years. I'm still helping out on both Emily and Matthew's baseball teams, but I prefer to engage in my latest passion, umpiring. If there can be such a thing as a natural umpire, I guess I'm pretty close:
(1) I'm a rules guy straight from the heart. Probably comes from my navy nuclear propulsion background, where nothing gets done without a procedure and every day you learn another little nuance on how the plant works to add to that swirl of "rules of thumb" flowing through your brain. (2) I'm loud and have no qualms about speaking up in public.
(3) With a background of catching and goaltending, I have no fear of the ball. Sure, a foul ball or missed pitch will find it's way to some spot uncovered by your protection at some point and even a 12 yr old's fastball will leave a mark, but bruises go away in time
(4) I love a good argument. And it doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong (of course the ump is never wrong), I'll find a way to argue my call better than the coach can argue against it. It never fails, I have yet to find a coach that knows that rule book better than I.
Back onto the title of this little missive. You certainly have to have thick skin to strap it on and step behind the plate. Coaches, parents, even players on the bench will always think they have the best view of every play and try and make your calls for you. I've heard some good ones, heard more than my share of moans and groans and had my fill of coaches trying to make up their own rules for how the game should be played. The trick (and hardest thing to come to grips with as an ump) is to ignore as much as possible. When the coach/player/parent decides to make a comment or talk back, you really have to give 'em the benefit of the doubt and tell yourself that the comment is merely one of frustration and not directed at you personally. Now I know better, but if you don't, you'll end up throwing out half the team and clearing the stands of spectators during every game. It's amazing how serious some people will take the "game" of baseball.
I thought I'd leave you with some good examples of some of the ignorance and frustration I deal with on a daily basis. Just a reminder, I don't get paid for this:
1. Opening Day: A young batter steps up for the first time in minor A (first level where kids vice coaches pitch). His heals are on the inside batter's box line and toes just cm from the plate. I warn him he is standing too close, but he ignores me, diving to the dirt twice on pitches that were strikes. In his 2nd at bat, still oblivious to my warnings, he tries to turn from an "inside" pitch and gets hit square on the back of his shoulder, dropping like a rock. Now, good on him, as he gathers himself from the dirt he's putting on a brave face, holding back tears as the coach runs down to assist him. I followed them a few steps up the baseline and stopped the young boy to see how he was doing. When he replied that he was okay, I stepped back, raised my right hand into a fist and rang him up on strike three. He was hit by a pitch nearly right down the middle of the plate. The coach was incredulous and (I assume) his mother began screaming obscenities from the stands. The next time that young lad came to bat, he stood squarely in the middle of the batter's box and I haven't had to warn him about standing too close to the plate in a game since.
2. 9-10 Year Old District Tournament last July. Top 6th in a tie game (6 inning games in Little League) with a runner on 1st. Batters swings and misses at a pitch that glances of his bat directly into the catcher's glove. I make the signal for a "foul tip" and call out "Strike". Meanwhile, the catcher has fallen over backwards in the process of receiving the pitch and the runner takes off to 2nd base. No throw is made and runner makes it to 2nd standing up. I say and do nothing and get in position for the next pitch when the defensive team's coach comes onto the field and proceeds to tell the runner that he has to go back to first because it was a foul ball. The young baserunner doesn't know any better so he proceeds to walk back towards first. I immediately call time and send the runner back to second. the coach is furious and demands to know what I am doing. I calmly try to explain the rule. that a foul tip is the same as a strike and the ball remains live. Runners may advance at their own peril. Coach is having nothing of this and starts a Monty Pythonesque torrent of arguments essentially summing up with the fact that I am dead wrong and that is not what the rule book states. This could have gone on for hours, but I wasn't going to let that happen. I calmly advised him to protest the call if he so strongly believed the call was wrong but that in the interest of proceeding with the game I was not going to continue with the argument at that time. He grudgingly left the field, making a pitching change in the process. It didn't end there, though. Apparantly he went through the rule book while his pitcher warmed up and realized he wasn't going to win any protest and tried to think how he could recover the situation. Just as I was ready to put the ball back in play, out strides our friendly coach, heads straight towards second base to talk with the base ump and then tells our poor baserunner to return to first. Well, this obviously peaked my interest, so I stopped the runner on his way back to first, sent him back to 2nd base and asked the coach what he thought he was doing. Never admitting he was wrong, he proceeded to tell me that because the runner had voluntarily gone back to first [when the opposing coach told him the ball was foul and directed him to return to first btw ] I was incorrect in sending him back to 2nd. I wasn;t going to have any of this, explained to the coach that he cannot deliberately attempt to mislead or distract an opposing player on the field and therefore the runner would stay on second. Our coach blew his top, starting yelling first at me and then at the poor runner standing on second (who proceeded to cry), then chased the boy off 2nd and proceeded to pull the base off of it's mounting, refusing to relinquish it. Needless to say, the coach was tossed, runner stayed on second and scored what ended up to be the winning run one batter later. Honestly, though, what was this man thinking. Someone who should be a role model for his kids, getting so into a little league game that he would embarass himself like that on the field.
Two pieces of advice for would be parents and coaches of ballplayers out there:
(1) It's a game.
(2) You won't ever know the rule book better than the umpire, so unless you're upset with a judgment call, don't bother trying to call the ump on a rule interpretation
"Play Ball!"
posted by Paul Crowley @ 9:45 PM
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