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I was the PU for a T-Ball championship game this past Saturday. They were two VERY competitive teams.
In the first inning I gave the Away team a TEAM warning after one of their players accidentally threw his bat into the backstop. Obviously this rule is in affect because it is a safety concern. Two batters later the same thing happened. I calmly walked onto the field, called the runner out at second and made all runners go back to there original bases. Not one peep out of the coaches. They knew the rules.
The Home team bats and the head coach tells the player to stand all the way back in the box and hit it to third base. Of course the player begins by placing his foot on the line. (Keep in mind that I borrowed the batters bat and redrew the box, because the chalk was dispersed when every single kid had to slide into home.) He pulls his right foot up and places it out of the box by a good 6-8 inches. I hated to do it but I called the kid out after he hit. The head coach comes at me from the outfield complaining that there's no way he could have been out of the box. (The HC is about 90 feet away! I guess he has terrific eyesight.) The HC's older son comes off of the spectator's bench, comes to the fence, and yells at me telling me that the only reason that I made that call was because of who I am. There's is no love loss between me and the HC and his son. At that point I concidered that a personal attack on me and my character. I told the gentleman, consider this your one warning and sit down. His only reponse was 'you are giving ME a warning?'
You would think a T-Ball game would be easy, but it's not. Why do we have parents like this in our leagues? I'm getting really tired of it and am almost ready to quit. I hate to do it because I know that 95% of the parents appreciate the 40+ hours a week that I volunteer to youth baseball. Do I just need to get thicker skin and live with these problem parents?
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