[tankmjg24]

High School Varsity game. R1 attempts to steal second and is tagged out on a very close play. He slid head first to the back side of the bag and was tagged right on the hand as he was arriving at the base. Upon me signaling an out he gets up on his knees and outstretches his arms and says "Are you kidding me" followed by a "that's bullsh*t". I eject him at this point. The player begins asking what he did wrong and that he was talking to the shortstop and not me. His comments were loud enough that I could easily hear them and in no doubt directed towards me in my opinion. The first base coach who is the assistant wants an explanation. I begin to explain to him and before I can the head coach has come over from the third base box. I was starting to get somewhat double teamed so I backed off the assistant at this point and only spoke to the head coach. I explained to the head coach my reasoning and all he kept saying was that his player was not talking to me but the shortstop as they play on the same travel team and are good friends and that I was too quick to eject and should have gave a warning. Things eventually simmer down and the game continues.

Fast-forward an inning and in between innings the head coach comes back over to me as he wants to explain the whole story as he says. He starts with that I was too quick on the ejection and that the shortstop said bull**** first because even he thought the runner was safe. I told him we were not going to discuss it and his reply was that if I was going to have rabbit ears that I should at least be able to hear the other team too. I again tell him that we are not going to discuss it further and he goes back to his dugout saying that he just wanted me to know the entire story.

So now that story time is over, I have four questions. 1st, do you all thing that I was too quick to eject and should have instead gave a warning? 2nd, would you have ignored the assistant coach and waited on the head coach or would you have tried to explain as I did. 3rd, when the coach came out in between innings would you have ejected him for his comments or how would you have handled the situation. 4th, when explaining to the coach what his player said, would you have used the actual phrase? The two things I was taught to never do was curse or be out of uniform. I repeated what the player said as to me this was the easiest way to explain.

Thoughts and thanks.