[TussAgee11]

Walk up to the field 5 minutes prior to a Sr. Babe game. Very relaxed league, dads coaching who realize their kid will not be the next Walter Johnson, overall a good league for kids who don't play HS or legion ball, but still enjoy playing.

Team has 8 kids. I approach HC, and inquire as to the situation. He says 1 player went to the Yankee game, another had to go to the hospital for grandma, but another had left his house and was on his way. I inform him he has 15 minutes from game time to field a team, and we go our separate ways.

Pard and I are standing at the plate talking and waiting. 10 minutes or so pass and I again move over to coach, finding out what the deal is. He says he has a player in the parking lot changing...

2nd inning I realize something is a miss. Both teams were wearing blue vests (one with white under, the other with black). The late arriving player had no undershirt... but his jersey was actually the other teams (not noticeable from afar, but noticeable up close) I talked with partner in between innings and he said that he noticed it too, and asked coach if that player was on his roster. Coach replied that he was.

When he came to the on-deck circle the next inning, I noticed he was wearing the other team's jersey... the inning ended before he came up to bat.

Then, a different player took his place in the field (the kid who actually was running late, which was probably an illegal substitution, but that is a different story). I ran over my options in my head for the next inning when the kid came up to bat.

Let me say that by the time I noticed this, and when I took the following course of action, the kid did not participate in the game. I knew I would have to resolve it before he did.

My options were,

a) Eject HC, Eject Player, Forfeit Game
b) DQ player, chew out coach, leave an out in the lineup, don't let kid enter on the correct team
c) Ignore all together because of the relaxed nature of the league.

I ended up calling the coach over and saying, "Okay Coach, here's the deal. You have told us that this player is on your roster. If he is not, you are assuming all liability for his participation in this game". Coach said okay, and we played on with no further incident. (Actually, after that at-bat, the kid did not play anymore and I noticed his "spot" in the lineup magically disappeared.)

I choose this course of action for 5 reasons. 1) To relieve me and my partner of all liability 2) We really had no way of proving that the player wasn't on that team's roster 3) I wanted to let coach that we weren't idiots and 4) The league is a very relaxed summer league and never has given me any trouble in the ways of incidents, or any partner that I've worked with and 5) Partner was on board with this course of action.

Now, reasons I should not have done this and been more severe... 1) The letter our creed, the rulebook 2) It sets a precedent if this guy pulls this crap again, and could leave a future umpire in trouble.

So, my question is... how would you have handled it? And, the muddier question to the law folk out there, did I indeed pass the buck in terms of liability to the coach?

Feel free to flame... in some ways I probably deserve it, but in other ways I do think I did the right thing. A sticky situation indeed... but that is just my .02 cents. I'm looking for your .013 €

Regards,

Tuss