You can't talk to the batter!

[His High Holiness]

Originally posted by Dave Hensley

I've had high school and college-level training, and associate with a number of veteran umpires, and I think I'm pretty safe in saying the consensus among the umpires I'm familiar with is that standard procedure for an ejected rat who won't leave the field is to tell him he's risking a forfeit for his team.

So please enlighten me - what IS the proper way of handling an ejected participant who refuses to leave the field?

This may apply to my area of the country only, but our umpires get in big trouble if they forfeit a game for any reason other than less than 9 players on the field. Our assignor is adament about this. I once had a coach that would not leave the field so I ejected one player every 30 seconds or so until we got down to 8 players. After every ejection I appointed a new coach and told him to get the head coach off of the field. When he failed to do it, I ejected that player.

Seriously, the best way to handle this is to go stand on the sideline and refuse to restart the game. Eventually, the fans we boo the coach off the field. If the coach comes after you on the sideline and your partner is such a wimp that he will not intervene, go into the other team's dugout , prop your legs up and sip a drink. The coach will not follow you into the other team's dugout and you can camp there all night if you want. I guarantee that within 5 minutes or so, game administration, the fans, or the police will take care of the coach. With cell phones everywhere today, someone will be on the phone to the police.

Peter