In horror I watched a 14 year old starting pitcher begin to cry and grimmace in pain during the 6th inning of a slugfest. My guess is that he'd already thrown 100 pitches or more during the game. His rat for a coach asked for time and only came out as far as the foul line and began to taunt his own pitcher. The converstation went something like this.


"What's the matter, does your arm hurt?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to come out of the game?"

"Yes."

"Well it ain't happening, so suck it up and strike somebody out!"


There are no words to describe how I felt as a parent of players the same age.


Tim.

There are no subtle forms of child abuse.

What I meant by subtle is that unless your looking for it, you may not recognize it as child abuse. The example Tim gave is one form. In other words, just because there are no bruises or contusions on a kid, doesn't mean there isn't abuse happening.

When my oldest was 7 (he is now 19), the head coach yelled at his son so viciously the son peed in his pants in the batter's box. The son was so traumatized by his dad's tirade he did not realize he had wet himself. The father was replaced as coach in mid-season.

That young man was an excellent ball player, but he quit after that season. He is now a promising 20 year old umpire.

I’m startled by the degree of rancor expressed toward coaches on this site. Do the most critical of you truly see yourselves as guardians of the game, and coaches as its enemies? How do you justify all the name-calling (rats, cheaters, liars, child abusers, etc.) in the same posts where you paint yourselves as victims of similar offenses?

David,

You screwed up on this one. Call the game by the rules. Invoking the God Rule just confuses people and takes away from the consistency the rulebook provides. Not calling the game by the rules is what umpires do when they haven't read the rulebook or don't know the rules.

Now, as for the attitude towards coaches and players that some of the people on here express, I agree it is disgusting. Anybody who doesn't respect what players and coaches do and isn't there to serve them should get the f out of umpiring. I am a ballplayer myself, and I can't stand when I have umpires that don't give it 100%.

CanadaUmp, that was very well said. I lurk around this board for a few laughs and to learn something now and then (the umps here certainly do know the rules, which I respect as a coach). What's sad is the pure disdain some of these folks have for coaches and players, the very people who are there to create the actual game - this attitude shows a complete lack of disrespect for the game of baseball as a whole. This is noticeable in this thread and the thread where a coach came to ask a question about how best to handle a situation and was treated like pure crap.

Of course, I am sure these folks are in the minority. Just like there are some pretty horrid coaches, we all know there are some pretty horrid umpires - be it in their rule knowledge, ability to get judgment calls correct, game management, or just overall miserable attitude.

I always teach my kids to respect umpires, it really is a shame new umpires are not being taught to respect the game as a whole.

Cheers!

The degree of rancor of which you speak is well-earned by the coaching community at large. In general, the majority of coaches are rats, and they do cheat and lie to achieve their objective, which only concerns winning the game. They abuse game officials constantly, but I guess you think that it's ok to do this. And umpires most assuredly are the guardians of the game. We are the only impartial participants, and are necessary to the integrity of the sport. Without us, games would be chaos and meaningless wastes of time.

Newsflash Slick, most of us are or were ballplayers. To successfully umpire, you have to approach it from a different perspective than that of a player.

It has never happened to me but I would call time, have a discussion with the HC about the verbal exchange I just heard, wait for him to say something personal or profane to me and then I would toss his sorry 8ss. I would then sleep very well that night.

The ejection report would be accurate, coach asked, pitcher said, coach responded, I called him over for discussion and he said something personal/profane to me so I tossed him. Yes, I baited him. Yes, I will do it again.

I was going to suggest finding a way to toss the pitcher. He could use the down time for the rest of the game and the suspension period.

Does that include the sandlot games everyone claims to remember with fondness? Those games had neither a coach nor an umpire yet I don't recall anyone claiming they were meaningless wastes of time.

In a 14 year old game, me and that coach would have had a private conversation regarding this pitcher (assuming I feel that he is risking injury on the mound). I'm probably in the minority here, which I understand. As an umpire, but more importantly as an adult, I'm interjecting myself into this one. If I was that kid's parent, I'm pulling my kid off the field that instant. Most parents would. Now I'm assuming the pitcher's parent did not hear this, and perhaps I'm the only other adult that did. What happens if this kid gets hurt? Its certainly on the Coach, but I would feel guilty as well for putting my job in front of the wellbeing of a kid.

Chances are this coach would go ballistic on me during our private conversation, I'd toss him, and then the assistant, who always in these sorts of situations realizes the manager is a maniac, will take the kid out and we will go on. UIC will get a report, I may get a "don't do that again from him", but it will pass on to the league president, and that coach wouldn't be coaching again. And a kid may have avoided serious injury.

It goes without saying that at JV, V, Legion, etc. level I would never do this, but then again, I don't think that it would ever happen at any other level than the one Tim described.

Just my two cents. Let the flaming of me begin. :o

Steve,

My experience is somewhat different than yours.

While there are most certainly "Rat Coaches" who will sacrifice their dignity, self-respect, integrity, common decency, and anything else they think necessary for the sole purpose of winning the game at any cost, in my experience those types of coaches are in the minority rather than the majority.

They are certainly more memorable than coaches who choose to conduct themselves otherwise.

I find myself pretty much in agreement with these statements.

Too many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the process of human perception and the degree to which impartiality contributes to the relative accuracy of that process.

Having a competent and impartial arbiter participating in the game improves the overall quality of the game for all who participate or even observe.

When I was a child, I would often play "pick-up" games with whatever kids in the neighborhood I could find. The games would often end chaotically, most commonly over an irredeemable dispute over whether a player was out or safe or some such thing.

But, in retrospect, I wouldn't say they were "meaningless wastes of time".

JMO.

JM

[QUOTE=spokanelurker]I’m startled by the degree of rancor expressed toward coaches on this site. Do the most critical of you truly see yourselves as guardians of the game, and coaches as its enemies? How do you justify all the name-calling (rats, cheaters, liars, child abusers, etc.) in the same posts where you paint yourselves as victims of similar offenses?[/QUOTE

If you have been around long enough you should have noticed how the umps on this forum are nasty to ANYONE that comes here even their own kind. Just follow how this thread has devolved into a personal urinating match over nothing. I stopped posting here b/c of it. So now I suppose I'll get the inevitable flames. But before you do that remember: if the shoe fits.......