[greymule]

I have never been physically assaulted as an umpire, but I have been threatened several times and am all for prosecuting violence against officials. (The threats resulted in routine ejection suspensions, but nothing more.) During a basketball riot years ago, a referee friend of mine was attacked from behind (by a spectator) and knocked unconscious. He suffered some real trauma and had a civil case going for years, but I don't know how it turned out.

But some guy holds out a cell phone, and another guy slaps it out of his hand? I know the courts are unpredictable, but an assault conviction and jail time on that are unlikely. I doubt that you could even persuade a witnessing cop to make an arrest.

At a preseason league meeting in Trenton, New Jersey, a SP manager cold-cocked the recreation director after the director announced that parking of cars would not be permitted behind the snack bar. This occurred in county offices. No arrest, no charges, even though the assailant was a convicted felon. Punishment? Banishment from the park for three years, so the manager had to watch games from his lawn chair in the parking lot. (I guess the parking lot wasn't considered part of the park.)

One guy I knew was banned for five years for slugging an umpire during a game. But no actual charges. In one riot in the 1970s, a guy who hit an ump was sent back to jail for violating his probation, but not for hitting the ump. The attack on the umpire revealed that he had been out after 9 o'clock.

The guy who punched the recreation director used to brag to me that he had a $100,000 infield: First base, $25,000 bail; shortstop, $15,000 bail, etc.

Over the past several decades, I've seen some disgraceful violence toward softball officials, but I can't remember anything ever ending up in court. But of course I lived in New Jersey, so I admit that my experience is not particularly relevant for the rest of the country.

I thought I had escaped this by moving to Alabama, but the New Jersey courts recently caught up with me and asked for a deposition about a 2007 attack by one SP player on his teammate.