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After my rant last week about how we should ignore the fans, I finally had one push the right buttons, and I almost sent him home.
After ball one, batter gets out of, and back into the box. She's standing on the plate, with her other foot outside the box. Pitcher stops and approaches me, "Isn't she outside of the box?!?!?!" I remove my mask and glance at the coach (a good coach who I've worked with before often). Coach sees my expression and tells his pitcher to shut up. He knows I don't let the players talk to me like that.
Pitcher then tells her coach the same thing. Coach requests time and from about 20 feet away asks me the same question. I say, "Probably - doesn't matter right now". Coach knows the rules, and was probably just asking me to appease his player. The pitcher is visibly upset, but as she takes her position on the mound, the player backs up and is set up properly. This girl was batter ten out of ten and did this every pitch. Walked up without paying attention, then looked down and backed up into the box.
As she's pitching, I hear from behind me "Pretty bad when she knows the rules better than you blue." I ignore it. A few seconds later, louder, "I SAID it's PRETTY BAD when she knows the rule better than you, BLUE!" I ignore him. Another pitch, another time for the batter to step out, then to the plate, then back into the box, and then a few seconds later on a passed ball I'm looking slightly behind me, and I get, "This is G-d D--n ridiculous! This guy SUCKS! The girls know the rules better than he does! G-d D--n It, call it, Blue!"
I think some of you would have tossed him. I thought about it, and almost did. If I didn't know the coach so well, I probably would have, and maybe should have anyway. Instead, I went to coach and said, so that only he could hear, "Coach - you shut him up or I will, and if I have to, you can walk him to the parking lot."
Coach shut him up pretty quickly. Worst I've seen from a fan in a couple of years.
[Edited by mcrowder on May 24th, 2004 at 03:52 PM]
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