Venting / Should I be upset?
 

District Little League game today. Team A wanted to make a special pinch runner, to which i walked over to the manager, thinking that all the subs had been used, and therefore, you can't do this. I called in my more experienced partner to the discussion, who straighened me out. The coach then reported the switch to the booth, where the TD was.

Now, I was wrong, so I have to take some heat here. So that upsets me. I hate being wrong, but accept that I was, and will never be on that rule again. I was misguided

But while I was calling my partner in, the vice president of the league which hosts the tournament, who was standing on the fence next to the backstop, was yelling at me to allow it and have them report it. He is an umpire as well, but was not the TD for this game. While we was yelling, I put my hand out and told him to "Relax for a second".

After the game, as me and partner are walking to car, he comes up to me. The district head was also in on this conversation. I told him very clearly that while I was wrong (and will learn from it), I did not appreciate what he did. I told him he made me look bad in front of everyone. I told him that it was between me, partner, and TD, and he should know that being an umpire.

All he kept telling me was, it's a simple rule, you were wrong, I am the VP of X Little League. You need to know the rules.

I replied with "Listen, you were right, I'm not questioning that, but don't make me look bad. Let me and partner figure it out."

I've had similar encounters at this field before with him (him telling me to have pitchers throw 1 pitch between innings to speed it up, to which I replied, "no" + a time where during a weather delay he cancelled the game, to which we had another one of these conversations about).

So, how upset should I be? I goofed, and got shown up by a brother umpire while the game was going on. I would have been fine with that getting done in the parkinglot.

Thanks.

I'd also like to add or ask if I should have just swallowed this and kept nodding my head, since he is a head hancho in that league (but not our association). Its hard to do, but should I have?

forget about it. learn from the mistake you made and move on. moving on includes moving on up to a higher level, where you dont have umpires hanging around the backstop telling you what to do.

I'm with Brian. Stop doing LL ball and that's your solution. And as a bonus you will get more money and it will be better baseball and you will most likely work with more experienced guys.

I agree. Everyone should stop working LL baseball. Even those of us who have worked several state tournaments at the big league (17-18) year old level. The play really sucks. All you find at those levels are poor umpires like Dave Hensley, Rich Fronheiser, and myself. We're all terrible, just ask one of us.


Tim.

i see this ship is already going downward, so id like to note that my post wasnt a knock on LL umpires, it was a knock on those who hang around the backstop chirping at others (at any level).

with that said, play on.

In my opinion you should have given him exactly the same amount of attention you would give any other yahoo on the OTHER side of the fence, i.e., ZERO.

It sounds like maybe you could use a Little League tournament rules cheat sheet I put together to try to help us stay out of just this kind of a mess. Little League is notorioius for tweaking their various rules just enough each year to cause us exactly the kind of goof up you fell victim to. Your ruling would have been correct two years ago, but not last year or this year.

My cheat sheet can be downloaded here. Hope it helps.

PWL: I'm sorry if I prefer getting paid for umpiring baseball games:rolleyes: . I enjoy doing it and love being around baseball, but as all would agree, money has to be involved. I'm not a lover of money, or I would not be umpiring baseball games. The Homeboy Shopping Network is the stupidest remark I've ever heard....and you're not funny:D . If I offended anybody who works LL baseball, I'm sorry. I didn't know that was an issue on here (I'm new). The point I was trying to make is that most of the bullcrap from outsiders goes way down when the level of ball is better and the players are older;). BigUmp: I have no doubts that you and Rich are good, quality, veteran umpires. I'm sorry for my remark.

There's no shame in wanting to get paid to umpire..... The shame is in your assuming that all of us would agree that money has to be involved. I do not umpire LL baseball (no LL in this area). But I have umpired a number of tournament games for groups like BSA and wouldn't accept a penny for doing it. Umpiring baseball is more than making a buck to me. I feel lucky everytime that I walk on the field, whether it's to umpire a group of 10 year olds or college players. Sounds corney huh?


Is this true? Outsiders can be a real pain no matter what level of ball you're working. I think that at times the level of bullcrap can be pretty high at any level.


Finally, do not mistake the fact that just because someone is a LL umpire that they are not good umpires. In the past I have worked with some very good volunteer (LL) umpires. In my career I did not have (or take) the opportunity to work many youth games below HS level. Now that I am working more games for the younger guys (and enjoying it) I have found that it's often more difficult to look good as an umpire working these games than it was when I was working college games. My hat goes off to the guys that work the kids day after day.

I'm sorry, I must have written something that made people think that I believe LL umpires suck. This is not the case at all. I respect the people that volunteer to umpire special tournaments. However, I'm sure this is not the case for all games. Umpiring is a big source of my income. If I were asked, as a favor, to volunteer umpire a game for free, then I would do it. But I would certainly not make a habit out of it. LL umpires rock! Do I need to say it again? LL umpires rock!

This wasn't meant to be a debate on the quality of baseball at the LL level (I've seen plenty of JV kids who can't field groundballs either). It's not meant to bring down LL, in any way shape or form. It wasn't even about LL. It could have been a HS game for intents and purposes. LL is alot of fun to do for myself and many umpires. I do big field ball as well and its night and day in alot of ways, but they are both baseball and they are both umpiring.

Again, this was not meant to be a debate on the merits of LL.

In my area, pay is the same no matter what you do (unless its HS, that is less for JV, slightly more for V). And experience? Some of the LL guys have 20 years of it, they just don't care for the apathy from players in bigger field ball. Alot do HS and LL (12 and under), nothing in between.

Little League isn't the problem here.

I guess it depends on what you consider LL baseball to be. There are far to many individuals that believe LL baseball is confined to the 60' diamond. Those individuals tend to call those of us still dedicated to the LL program "kiddie ball" umpires. I suppose I see they're point when all they're accustomed to seeing in a LL game is a Smitty with his hat turned backwards, shin guards outside of his pants, etc.. working those games. I believe that if their LL program was anywhere near as strong as the ones in many other areas they would also see that there are some extremely good umpires officiating those games.

They might also be surprised to find that there is some damn good quality big diamond baseball being played in those locations. That's where I spend most of my time anymore, on the big diamond calling games for the same players I see all season long in HS. There are two AML teams playing in my area, and four MM, but the players who play on those teams still play for a LL seniors or big league team during the Summer season. When the tournament rolls around the all-star teams at those levels are a who's-who of the HS varsity baseball teams. My oldest son is playing on a seniors all-star team that has baseball players from three different HS teams playing. His coach is the asst. coach for his HS team. So, do you really think the level of ball is that diminished just because they play under the banner of LL? I would hope not.


Tim.

I have found the same thing to be true. I worked varsity HS from my 2nd year (1987) until last year. This season I joined an association that does youth baseball at all levels through 18 yr. olds. I find that I have to take 10 times as much crap from coaches and fans, because of a couple big reasons:

1) Most LL and youth baseball coaches don't know much about the rules, and argue the usual silly myths that they think are rules. The fans are even worse, and usually have no clue at all. In HS the coaches and fans are significantly more knowledgable.

2) At the lower levels, the coaches and especially the fans think that the umpire must have just fallen off the turnip truck and started umpiring that day. Most folks don't know good umpiring when they witness it, so they treat the umpire like a rube. Most of the people involved have never seen the umpire working at the higher levels unless they have older kids that played HS ball.

Still, the perception is that if you are working a LL Majors game, you must be a really new, inexperienced umpire. Like Tim said, these folks have seen a lot of volunteers wearing their hats backwards with the gear on the outside, and wouldn't recognize a good umpire when they see one.

This same sort of thing happened to a 2nd year umpire in my association earlier this season. The guy behind the backstop was the district UIC. He was riding the game umpire pretty hard and afterwards he (the district guy) approached this new ump in the parking lot to tell him how much he screwed things up, rules he blew, calls he missed, ect.

The new guy asked me what he should've said in response, and the first thing I thought of was telling him, "No wonder there is a shortage of umpires around here."

This type of behavior stinks of a power-trip.