Strange Partners

[tibear]

Had a tournament this past weekend where I had a couple of games with some "different" partners.

I was base umpire in both cases.

The first guy didn't have a ball bag, indicator or plate brush. Used his hand to clean the plate and kept the extra balls in his pant pockets. Had a catcher interference happen in the game where the catchers glove ended up 10 feet in front of home plate. PU calls a foul ball (as the batter did catch a bit of the ball and went back to the fence). The offensive manager asked PU if there was CI, at that point he looked a bit confused so the manager asked if he would check with me to see if I saw anything. Of course I put the batter on first and we continued. Later I told him if after the batter swings you see the catcher's glove on the ground, there is a very good chance that there was CI.

The second guy was priceless. All of the diamonds in the tournament had fences all the way around the field and at one point the grounds crew were walking around the field by the home run fence to move their equipment from one diamond to another. The PU called time and told the grounds crew to hurry up because they were interfering with the game. The head groundskeeper (who was also in charge of the entire tournament) kicked the fence and said there's a fence so keep the game going. The PU then asked everyone to look at the groundskeeping people and acknowledge their presence!! The PU also made a point of announcing every pitching change to the crowd by walking to the mound and announcing..."Ladies and gentlemen, now pitching for ..... " Had a heck of a time keeping a straight face during that game!

Any other quirky partner stories??