[twest]

Hello All who has contributed to my simple little question:

1. The night I found this little message board was the night we had this little problem with the clicker. It was a Sunday night about 11:30 pm, I had been out in the sun all day with the temp being about 95. I was hot and tired and pi$$y! I had to be at work at 8 am the next day and I really didn't feel like typing the whole story, but if Peter insists on the whole thing, here ya go!

2. I am the wife of the coach so mentioned in the previous story also a very upset fan who didn't appreciate being treated unfairly to the opposing home team. My husband is not gay, good observation though!

3. We played this team in pool play the day before, but got it called off because of storms. They scored 8 runs on us in the first inning. It wasn't looking good. We switched pitchers and caught on to some tricks that the opposing 3rd base coach was doing. These are 14 yr old boys, keep in mind. We are a league team, not a hand picked team like alot are. Their 3rd base coach would wait until our pitcher was getting ready to release the ball and would yell things like "GO GO GO, OR NOW NOW NOW!" And no one would even be on base. Well, what are we in kindergarten? So, my husband, head coach, goes and talks to the head umpire behind the plate about it. (not the same umpire as the next day). He stated that he had been doing it all year long in their league and nothing could be done about it. Well, so then our kids started yelling out the pitch that the opposing pitcher was going to pitch to try to get back at them. This was about 4th inning and we finally got on the board with 2 runs (8-2 now) with 2 on base when they called the game because of storms coming in. So we thought we would be able to finish the game out the next day, but it didn't happen that way. We were told we could only finish out the inning and we already had 1 out, so we forfeited the game. It was only pool play, so coaches made the decision to save our kids having to play in the heat.

4. Next day, we played out another pool play game and won. Since the forfeit, we were already seeded. We were to play the same team from the day before that was beating us 8-2 for the semi-final game. The winner goes to the championship. First inning out, (we were visitors) we scored 3 runs.

This is what I think got it started, we were beating them 3-2 for 2 innings. "We scored 8 runs on them the day before, why are they beating us now? So let's do something about it!" So, my guess is they coach said something to the ump about our coach to start some trouble. When our coach, my husband, goes out to coach 3rd base in the 3rd inning, the umpire (1st time we had this ump) says he was stepping out of the coach's box. So, he asks, 'Where is it? There is no chalk line?' So he takes a few steps back and forth whatever, until the ump is satisfied.

Fine, well, the opposing team's coach of 3rd base goes out (same one yelling stuff in the 1st game). He is standing in the exact same spot that my husband was. So we were letting the ump know about it (the moms). Nothing ever said by ump. Then the next inning, the ump again says that my husband is standing out of the box, so he smartly stands in the dirt of the baseline 1 ft from the bag and the ump goes on. So, I got up and went to find the tournament director. I told him the situation and he said he would watch to find out what was going on. Nothing happened while he was standing there, but while I had gotten up, the umpire was the telling our kids they couldn't step out of the box to get a sign! Everytime they stepped out, he would say, GET BACK IN THE BOX!. By this time we were down 4-3 and only about 20 mins left in the game. We didn't score any, and we weren't home, so we knew we weren't going to win by this time.

When the opposing team came up to bat, nothing was ever said to their kids about wasting time. We knew that's what they were doing because each kid took time to do something unneccessary like, take helmet off and clean glasses, untie and tie their shoes. The umpire NEVER made them hurry up and tell them to GET BACK IN THE BOX! Like he did ours. So, it was totally called unfair from the beginning of the game.

So, with about 10 minutes to go, that is when this board member who was apparantly 'head of the umpires' came INTO OUR DUGOUT (for the one who thought he didn't) got 4 inches from my husbands nose and 'talked loudly' to tell him in front of our 3 bench players and 2 other coaches that he could not have the 'clicker' in the dugout and if he didn't put it away, he would be ejected. One of the mom's was standing next to the dugout when he said it, so there were lots of witnesses. My husband said, "you saw me clear from the concession stand with this in my hand and you had to walk all the way over here to tell me." He said "yep and if you don't put it away, you will be ejected!" Coach said, "well that's a new one on me! I've been coaching for 15 yrs and I've NEVER heard of such a thing!" He said, "it's illegal, now put it away" and he walked off.

A few minutes later, the game was over and when I found out what that man had said to my husband, I was out to find him myself. First, I found the tournament director. We told him what happened. He apologized and said he would take care of it and he had never heard of such a thing either. We said we enjoyed playing at their facility, but it would be the last time because of the way we were treated by the umpires and the board member.

A few minutes later I had words with the umpire. He said your coach needed to cool it. And I said "If you are going to be nitpicky about where our coach stands you better call it both ways and make a chalk line next time." He didn't have much to say after that and walked away. We saw the tournament director talking to the umpire about it because he said he watched and in no way was the way our coach was standing was it interfering with the way the kids were playing baseball.

So then finally the little man/board member emerged from the concession stand. He hid out in there for about 20 mins, probably hoping we had left. The tournament director gets him out and is standing about 3 inches from his face chewing on him about something. We knew it had to be about our problem. But after about 5 mins on the @ss chewing, he walked directly to me and said that had nothing to do with the "Tonkawa" problem (our team). I said that I wanted to talk to that man personally and he told me that he was through talking to us about our problem and that if our coach wanted to talk to him (board member) he could, but I couldn't. So about that time, another team mom walked up to him (director) to complain about a 12 & under problem. One of their fans had just been ejected when he asked for his son's home run ball! Don't know what the whole story was, but it sounded a little outrageous to us!

So in the meantime, I found Mr. Board Member and said "Why don't you look up that 'clicker rule' you just made up in the rule books. He said "Your coach could've been ejected for having it in the dugout or out on the field". I said, show me the rule because that is ridiculous!" He said, I don't have them, but we go by 3 rules. I said "what are they, because I'm going to look it up". That's when he said USSSA, OSSAA and Major League. I said I'd be going home to find out. I shouldn't have let him off the hook until he showed me in his rule books where it was because it was stupid and made no sense at all.

We started to walk off and people were just lining up to complain to that tournament director about something. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the last time he does that!

There, is that enough for you Peter? That is the WHOLE STORY. Nothing left out....

As for the Northwest Arkansas guy, we LOVED playing in Bentonville. We have no complaints from our national tournament last year, plus, the country is beautiful! I wouldn't mind moving there! :-) We'd like to go again this year!

Tisha West