Quote:
Originally Posted by Linknblue
ASA - Home team at bat down by 4 runs with 2 outs and 30 seconds to go on clock. Their current batter chooses to strike out intentionally so they get an extra inning by beating the clock. They're within the rules. Innings over and I call "one more inning". Of course visitors have a hissy and a squalling big time about chickens__t play and no ones does that stuff ever. It escalates when teams are changing positions and I've got 14 to 16 guys on field all barking at each other. Visiting pitcher (biggest hissyfitter) who was almost in dugout comes back on field, throws is helmet and confronts the opposing shortstop cuz he's barking back. He shoves shortstop. Now everyone is really animated and yelling. I want no part of another inning of this crap and simply say...."Game's over". Both teams behaving badly was my thought.
I'm a one man crew, 70 years old and not about to get into a 14-16 man hassle on the field and I know it ain't gonna subside if I toss anyone and play on. It's just going to get worse.
Hindsight, I could have and probably should have tossed the pitcher guilty of shoving but at that point it was a real "bruhaha" and I didn't want to work the extra inning of what I perceived was going to be nonsense and potentially more of the same barking.
I don't know if I'm looking for validation but what would you guys have done given working single man and a real scary situation about to happen?   |
How would I have handled this? Likely the same as you did. I would be keeping track of which players were doing what during the incident and written a full and complete report with as much detail as possible about the incident. In that report I am indicating that had the game not been ended player X (pitcher would have been out for throwing his helmet and aggressive contact to an opponent). I likely also would have included that the SS would also have been ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct as well because of his barking at the opposing pitcher. I would not each player who was involved. The reason is simple.
Why do that? The league could rule a couple different ways on this. They could rule both teams conduct in violation of league policies and issue a double forfeit of the game because it was ended by an umpire. They could rule the game over and the score as official at that point, of they could (if they have no support for the umpires, rule the game be continued). If they rule the game to be continued, you have an argument that these players should be considered ejected and would have been had the conduct not prevented them from being notified of the ejection. In a situation like this I am getting away from the action ASAP and watching from a distance. If the league decides to continue the game, those players would be barred from continuing in the game due to being ejected.
I rarely have had fights in contests I worked. I had a flag football game while in college that a fight broke out in. Of a 5 man crew, 4 officials jumped into the pile to break it up. I stayed back, watched everything happen, and wrote down names and numbers of those involved in the action. I ended up needing that information as a school police officer was watching the game and actually arrested a couple people. I ended up needing to provide a report for the school judicial committee when he was brought up on school charges.