[greymule]

As much as we want to discourage unsportsmanlike conduct, I still think we have to deal with it other than by calling people out. After all, how about USC by fielders? Award extra bases? How about by coaches? On-deck batters? Softball doesn't have 15-yard penalties or technical fouls or a penalty box.

Perhaps ASA could institute a malicious contact clause a la Fed (but I'm not a fan of that, either). BR attacking F3 after the game-winning hit is despicable, but it's more a matter for the league—or, in extreme cases, the police. In a flagrant case like that, maybe the league could rule a forfeit, the same as if F3 had hit the ump.

Over the years, our local leagues have seen isolated brawls and "dirty" physical attacks. The most serious brawl, which included attacks on umpires, resulted in suspensions, civil penalties, and, for one instigator already on probation, some jail time. Once, at the first meeting of the season, one manager (the father of the above-mentioned instigator) cold-cocked the county recreation director after he announced that everybody would have to park in the main lot, not up by the backstop. (Five-year suspension from the league and some civil penalties. Should have been lifetime ban, in my opinion, but a couple of years ago, they put the guy in the local softball Hall of Fame.) Another guy was suspended 5 years for attacking an ump.

In the region my association covers, if a player is ejected for USC from an ASA game, he cannot play in any ASA game for two weeks. Unfortunately, all ejections are treated equally, so an ejection for screaming a long string of foul names at the ump gets somebody the same two weeks as a word he blurts out and then apologizes for after the game.

I admit that sometimes there's really nobody official to whom to refer such matters. At times I too have regretted that I didn't have more power to enforce USC penalties. And give me the main field with the big game and a big crowd every time over field #29 where I'm all alone with two out-of-state doormats that have nothing to lose by acting up.