[jkumpire]

Normal FED game between good team and ugly team.

Ugly team gets all mad because on a steal of 2B by good team. F4 says he held his glove on the kid stealing as the ball went into the glove, as he tags him on the hip 3 feet towards the 1B side of 2B, while R1's feet are on the bag. Pretty obvious blown call by BU .

Then later in the game ugly team F1, with the score 9-0 I think, throws ball to F3 on a pick when the F3 is 20 feet off 1B. "Well he got that right", says ugly team manager as I call the balk (who says he has 18 years of umpiring experience). In retrospect, I should have not called the balk, if he was the magic run, he would have gotten to 3B, and then the game could have ended.

Next 1/2 inning on a force play at 2B, R1 buries F6; slides across the bag full go, lead foot high, right into the knee of F6, who is behind the back edge of 2B. R1 is out about every way you can be at 2B, taking the BR with him, and F6 is holding his knee rolling on the ground.

Now here comes the good team manager. He has used all his subs and of course of the six guys he has subbed in do not include F6, so he says "I have no subs, who can I put in." "Coach, I'm sorry but you gotta play with 8."

"No way, I have to sub somebody."

"Coach, those are the rules." My partner and I are staring at each other. How do you tell him exactly where an obvious rule is, like, starters can reenter once, and must stay in the batting order, and you can end a game with less than nine players, etc. You just can't say, read it yourself tonight after dinner...

"I want to see this in the rule book."

Okay, here is my mistake-- I said; "Okay I have a rule book in my car." So out I go, since they have not carted F6 off the field. As I leave, the ugly team manager says: " I don't want to start an argument, why did you call my runner out at 1B?"

After explaining it was FPSR and illegal slide violation, he asked why I was leaving the field. I told him something.

By the time I get back, I hear-- "It's okay we straightened it out." And you know the rest already. (For those of you who don't-- the two managers got together, the ugly team manager picked a player off the good team bench, and he was the sub for the injured player. Yes, I know how bad it sounds, we allow an illegal sub into the game, or should I say my partner let it happen. Path of least resistance I guess, but since I was the BU I did not know for sure until after the game).

At that point, I'm just trying to get out of Dodge before something really bad happens. And so we did, and that is just the serious parts of the game. I'm glad I only have one mess like this every other season, but it is still irritating....