A Must read for Grandparents

[DUD]

A must read for Grandparents

Those who aren't will love it, too.


At one point during a game, the coach called one of his
9-year-old baseball players aside and asked, 'Do you
understand what cooperation is? What a team is?'

The little boy nodded in the affirmative.

'Do you understand that what matters is whether we win
or lose together as a team.
The little boy nodded yes.
The coach continued, ' I'm sure you know, when an
out is called, you shouldn't argue, curse, attack the
umpire or call him a pecker-head. Do you understand
all that?'

Again the little boy nodded.

He continued, 'And when I take you out of the game so
another boy gets a chance to play, it's not good sports-
manship to call your coach ' a dumb *******' is it?'

Again the little boy nodded.

'Good,' said the coach. 'Now go over there and explain
all that to your grandmother.'

[Mrs. Wallnut]

That is a good one..Thanks for posting that. I may have to send that on to my mother.

[Uncle Cracker]

As a former Little League umpire, I can unequivocally state that there is a LOT of truth in that story...

[Ed62]

Love it. I'm passing it on to Grandma.

Ed

[gsmittle]

As a former Little League umpire, I can unequivocally state that there is a LOT of truth in that story...

As a former Little League coach, I second that statement!

Once I called time and trotted out to talk to a young (late teens) umpire. I could tell by the way he stiffened that he figured I was out there to do the usual "coach calling the ump names" thing. Instead, I said "This is the part where I do the ritual disagreement to your call. From where I was this is the way I saw the play [what I saw]. What did you see?" You could see the relief in his face as he told me what he had seen. I said, "OK, you're the ump and you make the call--just understand that I saw it differently." He said OK and we played baseball.

Man, I love that game!

g.

[Uncle Cracker]

Man, I love that game!

Threw a coach out once as he was getting out of his car...

[sparkeyjames]

As a former Little League umpire, I can unequivocally state that there is a LOT of truth in that story...

Oh boy did I have fun doing that when I was in my late teens.

Story 1.
Game starts and Team A takes the field no problems 3 up 3 down. Team B takes the field and then things start going down hill. The boy on Team B who is pitching has an unruly relative in the stands but not just any relative his own father. The father is not berating Team A he is directing his crap at his own son. Starts out slow and not too obnoxious. By inning 3 the boy is literally in tears on the pitchers mound. I have to call both coaches to the plate and explain that this cannot continue and they must do something to eject this parent. Thank goodness this worked. I was getting a bit angry by that time. The local rules stated that we could to NOTHING about people in the stands unless they were throwing things on the field. Still pisses me off to this day.

Story 2.
This one is worse than the first as it involved the manager of one of the teams. This kids are 16 or so years old for this game.
I may or may not have blown a call. I was the field umpire of a two man crew. From my vantage point it looked as though the kid caught the ball. The other umpire (home plate crew chief) was not watching that but was instead doing his job of making sure the runners on base were touching the bases. I called the batter out. The coach on Team A who's players were batting EXPLODED on me. I had never had this happen before. I explained my call and felt I was correct. He would not relent. He did not hold back any swearing either. I tossed him out of the game. First time for that too. Now it really goes downhill. He would not leave and continued to cuss and swear at the top of his lungs, a complete jerk. This goes on for around 5 or more minutes. Crew chief gave him one more warning that if he did not leave the field his team would forfeit. Did he leave NOPE. Crew chief calls the game a forfeit. We sign the scorebooks and leave. The jerk yelled and swore at us all the way to the parking lot. Worse part is the team he was playing came all the way from Windsor Ontario Canada just to play that game. I felt bad for everyone involved except the idiot coach.

All in all I did have fun being an umpire. It just seemed the older the kids got the more unruly and vocal the parents became.

[Uncle Cracker]

The older the kids get, the more the parents fantasize about the Major Leagues and the big paychecks...

[mater]

Anybody that goes to Little League ballgames has probably seen and heard a few of those grandparents.