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A war story as related to me by my assignor. This happened to him in a game early this week.
Regular umpire is caught at work and bails 15 minutes before the game. Assignor decides to the game himself, only one umpire for the game. Team "W" is known to be trouble.
2nd inning, head coach at third base argues a belt high pitch on the outside corner. He had been complaining earlier and now PU takes off mask and walks down toward third to give the coach his final warning. Don't recall exactly what was said but it had to do with calling the strike zone. As PU turns and is almost at home plate, he hears "What f#$king strike zone?" Head coach gets ejected. Coach leaves but not without further words.
6th inning, visitors come back on superior team "W" and is leading. Bases loaded with "W" at bat. F6 makes diving stop and fires in the dirt to F3. F3 stretches, makes great scoop for the ball while keeping his toes on the bag just long enough to record the out. First base coach starts going ballistic, kicking the first base saying something to the effect that the kid was off the bag. PU warns coach to settle down and to stop kicking the base. Coach ignores warning keeps arguing and kicks base again. Coach gets ejected. Parents are starting to become vocal when the head of Team "W's" baseball for that town tells them to knock it off and if there is any more protesting game will end right there.
Game continues. Next inning, "W's" coach makes a pitching change. PU dusts plate, moves six to eight feet out of the batters box and is looking at "W's" bench when first warm up pitch from pitcher strikes him in the temple. Umpire goes down for 5 to 10 minutes and as he put it, "My eyes were open but I wasn't seeing a damn thing." Game is forfeited at that point.
Now considering all the above, would you
1) Consider what pitcher did intentional?
2) Would your answer change now if you now find out that the pitcher was the head coaches son? (First coach ejected)
3) Would you still answer still be the same if you now find out that it was a Reese game played by 11 and 12 year olds?
4) What do you think should happend as a result of the incident?
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Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know. ~Socrates
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