Yup. Either all these fantastic stories are lies, or these umpires repeatedly agree to be beaten like rented mules by coaches and administrators, and wonder why they are treated like dirt. I don't think there's a whole lot of value in giving advice here---they know its wrong, we tell them its wrong (even thought they knew it at the time, and when they posted), but they'll go right back to the field and let coaches pull this sh!t over and over like a battered wife returning to her husband. :rolleyes:

Just like Oprah sez, baby, you gotta be willing to walk away, no regrets.

In my sordid past, I served as the trainer and assignor of umpires for the local PONY folks. They hadn't had anyone other that a coach doing the job for years and some on the board thought it might be a good idea to bring in someone with umpiring experience.

I worked for them for four years and increased the number of umpires from 18 to 46, all of whom attended 12 training sessions annually and passed three rules tests.

The last season I was affiliated with them a coach bumped and knocked down one of my umpires. I went to the board and demanded some disciplinary action. The good ol' boys on the board decided that the ejection from the game was enough and one even said that the umpiire probably deserved it. I appealed their decision.

The next week, while I was evaluating umpires at a tournament, a coach bumped an umpire and then spit in his face. Knowing the support I'd get from the board, we called the police. The coach was arrested for fourth degree assualt and was later convicted. He lost his school coaching job, but the PONY board kept him on.

After my appeal to the board of the first incident was denied, I walked away. I told them I could not in good conscience assign umpires to games in which their safety was in question and in which they would have no support.

Life is to short to work with a$$holes.

AMEN... Way to go GarthB!

We are working so hard in our area to get good qualified umpires to do these games. I can rember when all you got was Dad out of the stands are one of the local High school teams players who usually were pretty good with ball,strike,safe and out but no clue about any other rule. Now we have three umpires that have training and do everything from Fed to Legion,along with three more guys who have passed their Babe Ruth test and are really working hard on their rules and mechanics. For a league that only has 15 teams and play on eight different fields( one field is home for 5 teams) this is not to bad.
The BIG problem is that the other fields that only have one team are still all just using someone they've picked up and is officiating from what they know from watching TV or playing the game. I've gone to games to watch and been asked if I would do the bases and when you call obstruction or almost anything else that is not common knowledge to people not umpires the crowds go nuts and the other umpire goes,"Huh?"
Yes it might not be great baseball and the fans and coaches might not have a clue but darn it doesn't someone have to step up and say we will change this for the better.We will play these games by the CORRECT rules and be fair to both teams,we will start the change to make the officiating better for all concerned.:o OK I will now crawl off of my soapbox and come back to reality.

But did he use his plate brush to clean the rubber between innings ??? :D

I'm not sure he knew what a pitcher's plate was. He did scream, "FOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLBAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLLLL! " on every foul, no matter where it was, though.

I'm done on 'coach spit in my face, should I rescind his ejection?' posts, however.