[GarthB]

Originally posted by His High Holiness

Wobster;

OK, since you asked.

I gather from reading your article on the paid part of the site that you work youth ball, under 15 years old. If I am wrong, sorry.

The readers are laughing at you because in most places what you have done (not ejecting someone in eight years) is impossible unless you completely fail to do your job.

It is possible under one set of circumstances. Some youth leagues have such severe disciplinary procedures put in place for bad behavior that everyone toes the line. The coaches/players/parents are afraid of the consequences that the league president or BOD will hand down. This is the way that it should be. Youth ball umpires should not be in charge of behavior. League BOD's should be keeping a lid on things.

Unfortunately, that is not the way that it usually works. If someone came to me and said that he had not ejected anyone in eight years, I would say that he was not doing his job. It would be like a policeman with eight years experience applying for a job and saying that he had never arrested anyone because the town where he worked were law abiding citizens and he was able to talk them into doing right when they got rowdy.

Great for that town, but do you want this policeman in your inner city. Likewise, I cannot use an umpire who does not know when and how to eject someone from a baseball game. It is a learned skill, like writing tickets, or chasing drug dealers. You cannot read a book about it and be proficient.

I have 1 ejection every 8-10 games and have for years. I use ejections as a game management tool and try to plan them for offenses that have nothing to do with one of my calls. (You can read about it on the paid part of the site.) Many umpires have fewer but nobody operates at a high level with less that 1 ejection every 25-30 games unless they are pawning the behavior problems off on their partners. (Jon Bible notwithstanding but he is a super big dog with super credibility that you and I will never have.) That, in a nutshell, is why you have a credibility problem with your readers.

Peter

Peter:

In my experience as an umpire, assignor and evaluator I believe that 50% of ejections begin with a coach not knowing a rule or the application thereof, correctly. 24% begin with a coach arguing a correct judgment call that went against his team. 24% begin with a coach arguing an incoreect judgment call that went against his team. And the remaining 2% begin in a variety of situations that don't fall under the other three catagories.

I've never ejected a coach who hadn't had at least one opportunity to not get ejected. Often they are given two or more.

Instant ejections: The F bomb directed at me or one of my partners, drawing a line in the dirt, making physical contact with me or one of my partners, including spitting (This happened to one of my umpires this summer) among a few others.

Some may ask, "where was the one opportunity for a coach who violates one of these "instant" causes to not get ejected?" It was when he was deciding whether or not to do something that incredibly stupid.

Nearly all other ejections, even though they may have begun for one of the reasons listed above, usually have, as the ending scenario, a coach too damn stupid to know when to stop.

When to stop following me. When to stop arguing judgment calls, when to stop displaying his lack of rules knowledge and just plain when to stop yapping. In other words, not knowing when to STFU.

Depending on the scenario the coaches in the last catagory will get at least two opportunities to get a clue. If he doesn't take the opporutnity, he then gets a whole lot of time to try to figure out why he didn't.

I will not leave a mess for other umpires to deal with in the future. No coach is going to give another umpire crap because he got away with it with me.

All that said. I didn't have an ejection the entire school season and just four during summer ball. That's four ejections in about 127 games.