[Ranger]

Roger: Relax, I never would have thought you were attempting to silence me or put me down. What I thought I said was that after so many others had made responses on that thread, Carl was a totally new poster (on that thread). My reference to Carl being new was not an intentional slight on my part. His name does not have the instant recognition to me as it does to you. If I were, as you say, throwing rocks at a hornet's nest, I would have had to recognize the hornet's nest (Carl) as something to fear. Your analogy is funny. I had no idea that I could be stirring up more than I want. Somehow I doubt that Carl would be totally comfortable with the analogy either.

Methinks that after such great lengths by you and Carl to educate me about Carl's life in baseball, you may have been concerned that I needed or wanted that information to have me more prone to accept or validate him. I suppose I appreciated that information, but what matters to me most is who a man is. What will he say today? I will be infinitly more interested in a man's character and my relationship with him than his history. I would say the same thing if he were an ex-felon.

Carl: You need not worry about me being nice to Roger or anybody. I don't know what state he is in, but I am no longer shooting people for a living.

Also your reference to a post by Peter Osbourn, missing now, was not what I was talking about. My response was for Peter Booth.

FINALLY TO PETER BOOTH

I will put my coaching hat on and talk strictly as a baseball coach from here on.

If my number one hitter gets ejected for lipping off to the umpire he was stupid and I was stupid. That should not happen. My teams are coached by an umpire! I can not afford to allow any other coach to think that the PU would show me or my team any favoritism. All my players are instructed on how to behave and they are held to a very high standard. They are very aware that playing for me means a zero tolerance of disrespectful behavior. Being a military minded person you can assume that my being an umpire was only part of their problem.

Another aspect of this is that some of my coaching buddies love for the umpires to discipline their tough cases. Some coaches try too hard to be their friend. Oh sure they will put on a big act when their prima donna player is ejected but they also love to tell those players "I told you so" after the ejection.

Naturally I would prefer that you tell me you are having trouble with one of my players so that I might have the opportunity to correct him. If you eject him I will get upset. If you ring him up on an obvious ball I will get upset. You won't be able to win here. I will want you to have the ability to keep him in the game AND not hose the zone. If you eject him I will argue with you. If you call a bad strike I will not argue but I will be alert to keep my guy from losing control. If you call too many "bad" strikes, I will have the power to see that you not work any of my games again. Bottom line on this situation is that you can't win either way. Choose to be a great umpire instead and don't worry about the other stuff.