Erik's last regular baseball game was last night. The couch asked me to be the umpire again. I've done it for about a third of the games. On the games that I came late to (when I didn't have the kids) he would always comment on how he was looking for me to ump. I think he likes the way I call 'em. I don't particularly like doing it because it stresses me out, but if I don't do it then I can't groan at the other parents that are asked to ump.
The stress was abnormally high for me last night because my ex-father-in-law who I respect and admire was there to watch Erik. He's done the umpire job as something fun to do after he retired from the Army. He got paid to ump games at a much more competitive upper teens and competative adult levels. Also in attendance was my ex-sister-in-law, and nephew.
The game started out as most games went, but the the opposing 3rd base coach decided to take advantage of an error our team made and sent the kid on third home for their first score. These are 7 and 8 year old kids and they make a lot of mistakes, and we are trying very hard to teach them good sportsmanship. All of the parents on our side were pissed off. I wasn't sure if I should have a word with their coaches or not.
After we ended that half of the inning I talked to our coach. He told me not to worry about it. He said they pulled the same crap in a earlier game and that we'll just have to do the same kind of things. He said that we need to just keep it away from the kids. I just knew this was going to escalate into an ugly game.
We were up and a similar circumstance allowed us to advance our runners. They started to get aggravated when we scored a couple runs. It was only going to get worse from here.
After a wild throw to home to get one of our kids out was not caught our coach advanced the remaining runners on base. One of their coaches came to tell me that the play should have been dead after a throw to home. I have had kids in Little League for the past 8 years, and plays were never called dead unless the ball is in control and time is called, or the ball is thrown to the pitcher. I explained this to the guy and he acted as if I was speaking a foreign language. I again consulted our coach on my call. He agreed with me and told me to not let them upset me. I started feeling like if they are going to get this way then we should be hiring umpires that know the official rules.
Later in the game our coach was talking to the batter. I was paying attention to him as well. He finished what he was trying to say. The batter, the catcher and myself were all caught a little off guard when getting ready to play again, the pitcher throws a pitch before everyone is set. It happened to be a strike, but I called it a no-pitch. After we finshed with this batter one of the coaches comes out to talk to me about the no-pitch call. He started in with his "I've been a coach in this league at the Junior and Major levels" crap. With a little patronizing he did the "I know you're a volunteer parent...". He stated that the rules are clear that if the umpire doesn't hold out his hand to the pitcher to hold him off he is allowed to throw. We got into it a little, but I told him I would try to be better about using the hand signals, like there isn't enough going on to add to my stress.
I took a deep breath and we continued through the game. The intensity was still high, but no more incidents occured. We had a big rally in the final inning the secured the game for us. The kids were quite happy for the win. I felt bad for the kids on the other team because of how this escalated. Only one of the coaches came out to shake hands. Great example!
Since this was the last regular season game the coach planned on taking all the kids out to pizza after the game. The ex was supposed to take the boys out to dinner tonight, so she was going to take them. I decided to bow out of Chucky Cheese.
I had a shitty dream about this that woke me up in the middle of the night. I couldn't get back to sleep for more than an hour.
Why won't blogger let me post pictures from work? Dammit!
3 comments:
Usually it is parants (but I guess coaches are parent too) that seem to cause all the problems. I hate it, especially when it is younger kids, when all this competitveness comes on. It really is not a nice thing to share with the kids. It sounds like you did a fine job despite all that happened. I sure am glad it was not me. At one point or another I am sure I would haev held up both hands and said feild goal, three points.
Is it wrong that I don't know what umping is? The first thing that's popping into my head is the guy who stands behind the batter to catch the ball if he doesn't hit it. Am I right???
Wrong!!!
The ump calls the balls, strikes and outs. He is basically like a referee in soccer. I use that example since you (Grace and Wicked) seem to follow that sport.
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