We don't get paid enough for this...

[Kaliix]

Did two Ripken 9 year old state tournament games today. On the bases for game two. R1 steals second. As my partner is walking back to get behind home again, he walks right into the BR taking warmup swings with the bat.

He lost about half his left front tooth, chipped the right front and loosened the bottom two front teeth. I could see the root on his left front tooth. Needless to say, I put back on the plate gear and did the last four innings solo.

A similar injury occured to someone I know and it cost around $8000 to fix.

Apparently he didn't eject the batter (don't know if he should have or not?) and he stayed in and finished the game.

Hope I never see that again. They don't pay us enough to take that.....man!

[DG]

Damn that hurts, and I feel very sorry for him. Lesson learned here is never take your eye off the baseball, or batters warming up around the plate.

[orioles35]

Painful, better than the guys I know who had to call the cops at an EIGHT year old tournament.

That we don't get paid enough for.

[cmckenna]

Orioles35...

You gotta tell that story...

[greymule]

I feel for the poor guy. Don't know how he could eject the batter, though, unless he thought the kid hit him on purpose.

One ump around here thought he was safe when, between innings of a LL game, he went over to the 3B dugout to talk to a coach. However, the pitcher threw a warmup pitch at least 45 degrees off the plate and beaned the guy. Opened a cut, too, but a nurse in attendance cleaned and bandaged the wound, and he did the rest of the game. What was really odd was how the kid got so much steam on a pitch that pretty much went sideways, even though he seemed to step and throw toward the plate.

[Jim Porter]

I had a partner once who was working the bases and he had to use the restroom between innings. He did so quickly, and when he ran back out onto the field to take his position behind first, the ball the center fielder was warming up with hit my partner right in the head. The center fielder intended to just throw it in, and my partner's head just happened to get in the way. He was out for a good 2 minutes. Off in the ambulance he went.

[cbfoulds]

Originally posted by orioles35
Painful, better than the guys I know who had to call the cops at an EIGHT year old tournament.

That we don't get paid enough for.

What ~cmckenna~ said: You gotta tell...

To incite which, I offer the true story of the guy who got so pissed at the umpires at a 9-yr.old Minors LL contest in my vicinity (not tournament, regular season) that he crashed his car thru the fence to get at 'em.

Umpires in that League get "paid" a hot dog and a Coke.

[orioles35]

Well, you asked for it.

I wasn't there, but apparently there were a couple of bangers in the field and one of the parents on the team that the call went against decided to come onto the field and threaten bodily harm against the umpires after the game was over. After finally getting this guy off the field, both umpires (naturally) decide to leave via the other gate. What does this guy do? As though he hadn't made enough of an *** out of himself, he walks around to the other side dugout and starts making threats yet again.
Now the other teams fans start getting into it with this guy and eventually a fight starts in the stands. Luckily by then the umpires were long gone. This is MACHINE PITCH, fellas! So they call the cops to help break things up.

Then the next night, something similar happens and the cops have to be called AGAIN. This time the cops drive right up next to the dugout and this quickly puts everything to an end. Amazing.

This is all tournament ball and we all know tournament directors aren't the type to turn down an entry fee. Most places people conduct themselves fairly well, but as more teams get involved in these tournaments from "outlying" areas that this type of behavior is generally accepted, these type situations are just going to get worse.

Then there was the tournament before where a woman (I call her a 'woman', but she was cussing like a sailor AROUND HER KIDS before the game) was trashing talking the other team's pitcher. This is 13/14 year olds.

This type stuff is why I told our supervisor I need a break from calling games. It may be a long one.

[Atl Blue]

We had a game here (not mine, but some of my players from my HS football team) in the Atlanta area last summer that got the police (and local TV stations) involved.

16U travel ball tournament. Team from Alabama with a "reputation for fighting" playing the home team. Words, threats, HBP all day long, umps not doing enough to stop it. Late in the game, ALA R2, pickoff play at 2B, GA F4 tags the runner (returning head first) around the head, bloody nose. Coach from ALA team charges F4. All hell breaks loose. Fathers come from the stands onto the field to fight. Ump gets attacked as well (maybe THAT was something the teams could agree on!). Police come, many people arrested, taken to jail. Some of the ALA parents can't get bail arranged, and spend the night in jail.

The next day, teams are scheduled to play again. TV trucks there to cover the "game". Police on hand as well. Much screaming and hollering, one of the ALA parents that was arrested the night before gets arrested AGAIN.

We also had two women get into a physical fight at a softball game, one was a coach, one a fan. Coach disputes call by ump, fan tells her to keep her fat #@##$%^# shut, coach responds in kind, fan comes on the field and the two start a fight, hair pulling, punches, the whole nine yards.

And then we had the coach that was arrested for intentionally tripping a player on the opposing team (17 year old kids in summer ball). Kid had made a great catch against his team to end the inning, and as he was heading toward his dugout, the opposing coach tripped him. League banned him and had him arrested.

Thankfully, none of these games were mine, nor was I there for any of them. In one case, I knew some of the players involved, but otherwise, these were cases in the local paper.

Ain't youth baseball fun?

[Kaliix]

Talked to my assignor today and got an update on the extent of the injury.

Apparently the umpire lost 4 teeth (if they are where he got hit, that means two front top and two front bottom teeth), needed 32 stitches and I'm guessing won't smile quite the same again.

I hurt just thinking about it. There needs to be a purple heart for umpire or something...