Do you toss this coach?

[waltjp]

In this situation the umps should have cut it off as soon as they became aware of what was happening. I had a similar situation in a Babe Ruth game a couple of years ago.

I was the BU. The PU tosses a manager for questioning his strike zone. (The PU's zone was awful, but that's a whole other story.) Anyway, about an inning after the manager is tossed I see him standing next to his dugout and talking to the team and other ***'t coaches.

I make the PU aware of the situation and tell him that I'll handle it, figuring that if the PU went over it would only exasperate the problem. I informed the manager that he was removed from the game and was not allowed to communicate with his team. With this he starts screaming at me, "What are you going to do, call the police?!"

Now this is not my fight to begin with and I'm certainly not going to get into an arguement with a manager who has already been removed from the game, so I repied in a voice loud enough for some of the parents standing nearby to hear, "Coach, the only call I'm about to make is a forfeit in favor of the other team. It's up to you."

With that I turned and walked away. When I looked back he was gone.

[DownTownTonyBrown]

Originally Posted by waltjp

In this situation the umps should have cut it off as soon as they became aware of what was happening. I had a similar situation in a Babe Ruth game a couple of years ago.

...

Now this is not my fight to begin with and I'm certainly not going to get into an arguement with a manager who has already been removed from the game, so I repied in a voice loud enough for some of the parents standing nearby to hear, "Coach, the only call I'm about to make is a forfeit in favor of the other team. It's up to you."

With that I turned and walked away. When I looked back he was gone.

And that is exactly how it should have been.

Eject the first manager. Period. He absolutely knows (and you can surely tell him) that he is required to be out of sight out of sound (ABSOLUTELY NO MORE INVOLVEMENT WITH HIS TEAM.)

Player leaving the dug out... eject him too. Especially if you think he is cavorting with the already ejected coach... or back behind the fence checking your strike zone. His place is in the dugout - not in the stands. whether he is talking to his Momma or his father the coach. In the dugout - ONLY.

The second "ASSistant" coach is discussing with the already ejected coach - EJECT HIM TOO! This is a no brainer.

These are rules that need to be enforced - even in 12 and under games.

Your job is not to try to protect the coaches or keep a violating team in the game. These are the rules, Coach. You violate them and you are ejected. You continue to violate and your team will forfeit. This is not a rule you should bend in the favor of the violating coach.

[IceGator8]

Shoot, I'll get in my two cents but I'll probably just state what someone else has already said.

When I eject a manager I make sure he leaves. If for some reason I notice that he has come back or later or is relaying messages then I stop the game and warn that unless he's left the park in one minute the game will end.

The "let the coach come sit in the stands in street clothes" thing doesn't work at the parks in which I officiate as there aren't a lot of bleachers. Even the high school parks aren't big enough for the coach to go sit in some far off corner of the stands. For me he needs to be in the parking lot far removed from his teams bench and any players.

This has been a very good subject though because I thought the debate on whether the ump has the right to forfeit a game was very interesting. Both sides made good points.

Eric