OK, a unique thread I must admit, but I wanted to post it more so out of curiosity than anything else.
Last night I was chatting with a fellow NCAA umpire buddy of mine who lives in southern California. Frank was talking about his first ejection of the season occurring in his Oklahoma St. @ Cal. State Northridge series recently. We got to discussing EJs in general, and the conversation took an interesting path.
We were debating whether, as much as most umpires would prefer NOT to eject someone, that we're all secretly guilty of some kind of instant, twisted pleasure when it comes to dumping an individual. We also talked about how there often seems to be a rush of adrenaline when we eject someone, but not in a necessarily negative sense. Perhaps it's due to what I sometimes call the "totality of the circumstances." Some EJs are instantaneous, done as a direct and immediate result of a transgression, while others may have been building for several innings, etc. Whether there is this weird, internal, sadistic satisfaction from dumping someone (
), I can tell you this much: I
never like the whole situation surrounding an ejection. It creates a tension or other weird feeling that just isn't good.
I generally am not known for having a lot of ejections during my entire season, which usually sees me working 150 games or more, but I've got two already since March 17th, which is more than I've had at this time in years. I'm not worried at all; that's just the way it goes sometimes. Nevertheless, the topic of ejections has always intrigued me, especially, I suppose, as an assignor, where I receive Umpire Reports from those whom I assign and for one of the conferences here where I assist the Supervisor with staffing and observations.
So, what are the thoughts of those here? Who has how many EJs this year? We're among friends here, so I don't think we need worry about the quantity, reasons, etc. As I said earlier, I'm more curious than anything else.