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Wheat Festival tournament ends in disaster

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By Tracy McCue
GateHouse News Service
Tue Jul 14, 2009, 11:14 AM CDT

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Wellington, Kan. -
Hundreds of baseball tournaments have been played at the hallowed compounds that is Hibbs-Hooten Field, aka Sellers Park.
But one would be hard pressed to find a tournament that ended as disappointingly as the one this weekend.
The 2009 Wellington Wheat Festival tournament for high school aged boys ended in shambles with one team pulling itself from the tournament after its opponent had eight players and coaches ejected and were in a shouting match with the event's umpires.
Yes, that sounds confusing. Let's explain.
"It was a shameful situation and I didn't want my players to see it," said Beau Welch, head coach of the Princeton team, which was the team that left the tournament early. "So we decided to get out and go home."
Princeton, located in northeast Kansas, was ahead by one run in the fourth and was having no problem with the umps. But Welch said the situation involving the other team, the Wichita Hustlers, and the umpires was so out of hand that he just wanted to leave.
The annual Wheat Festival baseball tournament involving boys teams ages 15-18 is a fund raiser for the Wellington Babe Ruth program and precursor to the post-season tournaments which starts next week.
The tournament included the Wellington 15-year-old all stars, the Wellington 16-18 year old all stars, and three non Babe Ruth teams: Princeton, Park City Gators and the Wichita Hustlers. It was an open tournament and any team could participate from another baseball affiliation.
The Hustlers is a Wichita Park League team which came to the tournament because there were two players from Wellington on the squad: Adam Bennett and Chris Torres.
"I thought it would be kind of a neat thing if we could play in the home town of these two boys," said Tim Dryden, Hustlers head baseball coach. "We had an open date and this worked out."
The Hustlers travel extensively, Dryden said Monday, and try to get as many as 60 to 70 games in during the summer. He said they travel anywhere they can and rarely if ever have problems in previous tournaments.
"Up until this tournament, we never had an ejection," Dryden said.
Wheat Festival tournament director Ron Metzen thought differently. He said he heard from a couple of sources that this team is known to cause trouble.
"That came from one of the parents," Metzen said. "I decided to let them play anyway. Usually teams come down here and have a good time. Everyone tries to behave themselves."
Wellington Babe Ruth umpire Bobby Wilson said he learned quickly, this was not going to be an easy weekend.
The Hustlers wasted little time getting in trouble with the umps, when one of the assistant coaches was ejected for disputing balls and strikes on their Friday night opener, Wilson said.
"It wasn't like this was a one-time thing," Wilson said. "This guy was arguing for three innings, so eventually I tossed him out."
He said after that things cooled off throughout Saturday although the team was verbal and loquacious with the profanity.
That led to Sunday in a semifinal game between Wellington 16-18 year olds and the Hustlers. Again, another player was ejected for calling the ump a derogatory term. Then a head coach was ejected for making a statement about the umps' ability.
By the championship game, things were at a boiling point, Wilson said.
"I did something I have never done in 26 years of umpiring, I designated a team captain for the teams," Wilson said. "I knew things were getting close to out of control so I told the representatives to try to keep their fellow teammates under control and exercise great sportsmanship. We are here to play baseball."
The situation simmered for three innings, but in the top of the fourth with the Hustlers batting, a player was thrown out after disputing a call on a strikeout.
"He had been warned before that you don't dispute a judgement call concerning balls and strikes," Wilson said.
Then in the bottom of the fourth, a Princeton runner stole first to second and was declared safe. The Hustler third baseman, who was not involved in the play, allegedly yelled at the ump what a bad call it was. He was thrown out.
The head coach came out to protest and was later thrown out for allegedly spitting at the direction of an umpire.
After that a war of words ensued. According to witnesses, the ejected player refused to leave the field.
Outfielders came in to get involved in the dispute and Hustler fans were yelling from the stands, witnesses said.
Finally, the Princeton team, innocent bystanders, forfeited the game, and the tournament ended.
"In all my years of coaching since I was a 15-year-old in Mayfield I never saw anything like it on a local level," Metzen said. "And I especially have never seen a team which was winning leave the game."
Dryden agreed the situation should have never occurred but puts the blame on the umpires.
"I've been an umpire and one thing you have to realize is you're going to make people mad," Dryden said. "My perception is that these umpires in Wellington are way too sensitive. Maybe it's a big city, small town kind of thing. I don't know. You definitely have to be thicker skinned if you are umpiring in Wichita."
Dryden said he felt his team was "homered", and thought, perhaps, his team was singled out because it eliminated a Wellington team that had a son of an umpire.
Metzen, on Monday, said that was a silly charge.
"I don't think that's unusual to have umpires from your home town who have kids playing," Metzen said. "In fact that's probably the norm in towns the size of Wellington."
Metzen said he will always defend the Wellington Babe Ruth umpiring squad that includes Ron Brown, who has won national awards as an umpire and is from Winfield. In fact, he said, he thought the umpires this weekend may have been too tolerant.
"I know if I was an umpire I would have thrown some of those kids out way before they did," Metzen said.
As for the spitting charge, Dryden denies doing it.
"I have a habit of spitting on the ground," Dryden said. "To say I was spitting at an umpire is a crazy thing to call."
Dryden also said his team doesn't use profanity any worse than any other team and that was a trumped up charge by the local officials.
Through all this both Wellington boys, Torres and Bennett, came out unscathed.
"Those two Wellington boys handled themselves very well," Metzen said. "They were never involved with the fighting. In fact, I thought they looked a little embarrassed by the way their team was acting."