Sorry for the late post, been busy but thought I was share.
Last Wendesday I made about a 35 minute trip to help out an offical who had someone bail out on him at the last minute. Anyways, this was a 2 game set with teams from within the city playing each other.
I worked the dish the first game (boy was it hot!) and of course I was in the field in second. First game went fine, no real problems. But (that famous
last middle word), the second game was a little different.
It was the top of the 4th, bases packed, 1 out. I signal to my partner infield fly and he reflects so we know we are on the same page.
Pop fly to the right side, it was somewhat close to the line therefore I just pointed and let my partner verbalize the call. So he did and I did as well. The second baseman took the fly and he did not make the catch. Now, the batter-runner is out and all hell breaks loose. The coach is yelling to throw to first (the runners took off about half way). So the second baseman throws to first -- I've got nothing -- and now the coach tells the players to throw home where the runner on third is trying to score. The throw comes home and he touches the plate -- my partner has nothing. The coach starts yelling in joy "that's a triple play." Ohhh boy, my first thought was (to myself) was WOW!. Anyways, the coach comes out and start complaining that we didn't call infield fly and the changes his arguement to that we didn't say it loud enough. With the not calling it arguement, he says I didn't see you do this (putting both his hands in the air with the plam open -- "dead ball". I tell him that an infield fly has never been a dead ball. The inning continues and they get out of it. As I'm going back to position A to start the bottom of the inning one of the assistant coaches (who is coaching first) starts talking to me.
He asks if I asks if that type of situation would occur again if I would say "infield fly" louder. I tell him that I don't have any problem saying it louder but that the players also need to be aware of what infield fly is and that's not my job. He tells me that some of these players only play during the summer and that "they don't get much practice time." I tell him that if the players were taught what the steal and bunt sign were that it takes about the same amount of time to teach infield fly. At this point, it is obvious to me that all these coaches care about is winning. All of a sudden, one of those wonder fans who thinks he is above the rules of the game starts yelling at me: "Why are you still talking?" I ignore the first time and I continue my situation of explaining things to the first base coach. As I'm finishing up, he says it again: "Why are you still talking?" I reply by saying, this conversation doesn't include you so please stay out of it. He was dumb enough to speak out again and make another statement: "Hey blue, you are still talking and I don't know why?" At this point (this fan had already got a warning from my partner whenever my partner was explaining the infield fly situation to the coach). So the time had come: "Time!" Sir, your time has expired here, you must leave. "Why?? Why?? I only said one thing, I'm not leaving." As I'm walking to my partner I hear (from his wife I assumed), "you don't have the power to do that." I tell my partner that we aren't continuing the game until he leaves. He finally left and the game went on, with no other problems.
Gotta love summer league games!
PS: If you made it through the entire thread.. congrats!
Sorry for the long post.