[IRISHMAFIA]

Rabbit ears!

This is one time it can be a good thing for the umpire to have rabbit ears. Preventive umpiring keeps many folks out of what can be considered as sticky situations.

Had an adult men's game where the defending team's scorekeeper yelled to F3 (player/manager) that he thought the in the box was a new batter. The batter had a 1-1 count on him. I asked the batter, "are you a sub?" He said yes and gave me the name of the player for whom he was batting.

The Player/Manager went ballistic while approaching the plate. This was when I was informed that I, as the umpire, am not allowed to ask the batter any questions and that I gave that team an unfair advantage. After pointing out that it was his scorekeeper that raised the issue, I said thank you and told him to return to his position. After the game he told me that he was going to my boss (UIC, I guess) and get this straightened out. I guess he was mighty disappointed when he didn't get to hear what he wanted.

The following year, he registered to be an umpire. He attended all the clinics and school, understood why I did what I did and worked a couple of years before he quit. He quit because he admittedly couldn't stand the coaches who didn't know anything screaming at him. Hmmmmm?

I haven't seen him since.



[Edited by IRISHMAFIA on Apr 10th, 2004 at 10:02 AM]