[Kevin Finnerty]

Originally Posted by HokieUmp

Okay. Open question to all of you in the "these kids today, with their hair and their clothes, why you little ... mumble mumble five cents for a movie mumble mumble FDR mumble" group:

Is the pitchfork-and-torch reaction based on the response, or the age, of the umpires in question?

In other words: make these umpires my age (nearly 44), and try to replay the scenario in your head cleanly. Would you still harrumph as much, or would your responses to the OP been more of a "don't f--- with the umpires post-game about calls"? I believe it would be the latter.

Look, on this board on numerous occasions, as I said before, there are stories of Dad/Junior/Junior's Coach approaching an umpire at his car, or on his way to the lot, after a game. And we on the board have had the consensus of that being A Bad Thing.

If you hate the upcoming generations, fine - but just be honest and admit it influences your response here. (Like I said earlier, I have 2 teens of my own, and witnessing what's coming through the pipeline, with the MyFaceSpaceBook, and seemingly every kid acting like a wannabe gangsta, etc, etc, makes me worry about when that generation is in charge of my breathing tube one day. But I try not to knee-jerk about every last d@mn one of them.)

....and I'm not condoning whichever umpire yelled at jwwashburn as he walked away. I do think the "stop sign" and the "that's enough", while not the optimal response, probably, was still a response to the essential statement of "I know the rule, and maybe you should try learning the rules sometime" from a 'rat coach.' We all know that's what WE'D think if we'd been the umpires at the car.

I'm astonished that you would infer all of this based on our opinion on the specific case of two smart-a$$ed kids in a youth baseball setting.