Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeStrybel
I'm not bigger than the game and I work to go unnoticed by the players and coaches.
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What does "bigger than the game" mean, anyway? How does one go "unnoticed"? I stay out of the way until I need to be in the way. It's up to the coaches to know how to act and understand the meaning of sportsmanship (and the coach in the OP was not acting in a sportsmanlike manner).
When working a D3 college game a few years ago, I ended up ejecting a head coach from the front half of a DH for grandstanding after I walked away from him (without ejecting him and while putting up with too much of his Weaver-like rant) on a fair/foul call on a bounding smash on the third base line that he thought he saw better from the third base coach's box. In the second game, I called a no-brainer obstruction on a rundown and almost had to eject the *other* coach.
The assignor, who is a "don't be noticed" kind of umpire, asked me if I got a good look on the smash down the line (what kind of a question is that -- since the schools here are too cheap to hire 3 umpires he *knows* the look I got -- a step and a look) and also if I could've avoided the controversy on the rundown by simply not making the call. This was also a season where obstruction was covered extensively in the NCAA meeting and was a point of emphasis in the game (after the rule change, which was reversed this season). So the assignor was, essentially, a coward who cared more about getting a phone call from coaches than backing up his umpires who did the right things on the field. After that DH, I decided that I was done at the end of the season working small college baseball. It wasn't worth the 2+ hour drives, the 18-inning DHers for crap money ($185 at the time for a DH) teams that didn't have any pitching (with games that were 17-16 and DHes that ran 5-7 hours), and the Weaver/Martin kind of managers who thought they were bigger than the game (how come coaches aren't accused of being bigger than the game -- I thought the game was about the PLAYERS).
So I'm just a HS umpire now and I'll live vicariously through an umpire I got started in D3 baseball (who didn't need my help, just a connection) who's going to work a regional this year. And the coaches, on average, respect my work -- I'm a full point above average in the HS coach's ratings we have (and I wish we'd get rid of). And, BTW, I did have one of the rare HS ejections in the state last season (quite frankly, when only 12 coaches get ejected in an entire season my first reaction is that umpires are shying away from taking care of business). And now, my favorite quote from a famous Wisconsin umpire:
"One of the really wrong theories about officiating is that a good official is one you never notice. The umpire who made that statement was probably a real poor official who tried to get his paycheck and hide behind his partners and stay out of trouble all his life. Control of the ballgame is the difference between umpires that show up for the players and the managers." - Bruce Froemming