Quote:
Originally posted by greymule
I guess I'm way too soft. Must be because I come from the old school, where umps let players and coaches say a lot as long as they didn't hurl personal insults. I've seen umps toss even fans for the old "call 'em both ways" remark, but to me, you're supposed to ignore the fans, except for obscenity.
All the FP leagues around here are real sticklers for sportsmanship and quickly get rid of coaches who don't set good examples. I guess we're very lucky in that regard.
"Call 'em both ways" from coaches or players doesn't bother me. Maybe it should. Depends on how they say it.
For some reason, coaches very seldom give me a direct argument. Their main tactic is to talk to somebody else so that I can hear:
"Looks like she's gotta throw it right down Broadway."
"I don't know where that one was."
"That pitch was right over. He's really squeezing us."
Only once would I have tossed a coach in FP, but my partner beat me to it. I've tossed only 2 players in SP. Both guys gave me no choice.
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I don't know. I've been umpiring since 1966 and I'll give them their say, but will not let them put on a sideshow for the players and fans. I love it when they tell me, "I wasn't talking to you", but it was loud enough for the entire other team and the fans pass the outfield fence to hear the conversation. I simply tell them that if we can hear you, you are talking to us (umpires).
Two more of my favorites: "You HAVE to give me a warning" and "I didn't curse you, so you can't throw me out!"
I feel like a 2nd grade teacher dealing with bunch of kids who just learned to put together two coherent sentences. The excuses and threats are the same things I heard from classmates in grade school. "He started it", "He said it to me first", "She's looking at me", "I'm going to call (enter name here)", etc. It's just unbelievable. Usually, I just laugh at them and that just upsets them more.
As far as the fans are concerned, they are not there. I have enough to do inside the fences without babysitting members of the general public. I will address a fan's presence only if it is directly affecting the game. Even then, I just tell the coaches the game is suspended until they get control of that fan.
I don't really eject that many players or coaches. I have one this year, one last year and three the year before that and I don't have second thoughts about any one of them.