Parent/Umpire
 

In the long post regarding the behavior of parents who are umpires, the following comment and reply were posted, then they were forgotten in the bigger dicsussion. Personally, I have no problems with a parent/umpire discretely advising his child's coach about a missed rule application, and am resurecting the posts with a genuine desire to see how other umpires feel about this issue. The names of the posters were removed in an attempt to keep the discussion from getting personal.

The comment:
The Reply:
Thanks for any feedback you provide.

Sounds like Tim and Jurassic.

I got redacted as a baby.

Never forgot it.

Never forgave the doctor either.

Or my parents.

I think the only really subjective opinions you'll get are from those of us who wear both hats. It's easy to say that it's out of line for an umpire to ever bring something like this to light during a game the umpires son is particpating in. But before we make that judgment please consider what the umpires son has gone through to get deep into an end of season tournament. The long hours of practice, the sacrificed weekend get aways in order to play double headers on Saturday's and Sundays during the season. My son comes waaaaay before umpiring to me. When I saw the fruits of his labor being devalued by an incompetent hack I did what I thought was right as a parent. No, I'm not talking about the comment I made two years ago, this is about me alerting my sons coach to an obvious intent to deceive balk that wasn't being called.


Tim.

I see no problem with an ump/parent informing the coach of his umps team about a rules problem

What about an ump/coach. When he is coaching, can he not ask the umpire to apply the right ruling if a ruling is being misapplied?

It hurt so much that I couldn't walk for nearly a year or talk for nearly two.

And I couldn't read or write until I was four.

We know, but what's your learning disorder got to do with being "Redacted"?

Ka-bong! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Blue37, the coach didn't know that a pitcher has to come to a stop from the set position?

Fast forward to a game where parent/umpire just happens to be the partner of the above mentioned 'mope'. Or maybe you parent more then umpire?

I have been a coach. Then I started umpiring and coaching (not in the same game obviously). Now I just umpire.

I don't think I would have any problem providing RULES assistance to my son's coach, only if he wanted it, during the game or after the game.

When I coached, I certainly had no problem attempting to explain a correct ruling to a fellow umpire if he was in the process of blowing it. Most of the time it was an umpire who did not work the same games I did and he did not know me as an umpire.

Hope that answers the question.

I hope if your sons' team lost that you advised him [Manager] to protest. Someone needs to know what this moron [Smitty] is doing.

I believe this addresses both questions.

The reply from the idiot [who is ignored so please dont quote] is more of a backstab than what transpired.

IMHO:D

Sons want to know their father is interested in them, and what they are doing. I don't think they look forward to seeing Dad go off to work. I hope my sons look forward to the day when I don't go off to work anymore.

Do you have sons?

Originally Posted by fitump56
I think sons want to see their Father's going out to real work every day (not aimed at you unless you don't work), using their spare time to umpire. Not posting to forums all day ebery day continuosly for years on end.

Valid point.

That will entirely depend on whether or not you become a homebody nuisance. :D

That umpire matter of fact.

At one time I wore both hats too. I had a son that started as QB for his high school team while I was both evaluating and assigning football officials in that area. He also was the starting PG in basketball, and I was also assigning/evaluating that sport. He also played baseball in the spring/summer. I saw some officials in all 3 sports that just weren't very good. I also saw some very good officials in all 3 sports either miss or make a bad call on occasion. I shut my damn mouth though and refused to comment to non-officials on anything related to officiating. Why? Because it's (1) unprofessional as hell, and (2) backstabbing. Btw, I also refused to evaluate any officials who worked any of my son's games. I left that to other evaluators. That removes any hint of not having an objective evaluation. Quite simply, if I've got something to say to an official, then I'm going to say it to his face. I sureashell ain't ever gonna say it to a non-official.

If you want to help a rat over one of your supposed fellow officials, then you are a rat also imo. Did you ever think of going to your fellow umpire instead of the coach, and trying to help with that umpire's training? You know...telling your fellow umpire "Hey, you're mis-interpreting a rule. This is what the rule really says"? Wait....I'll save you the trouble. The answer is no, that thought never entered your mind. Instead of trying to help out or improve that "incompetent hack/mope", you threw him under the bus instead. You wanted to see your kid win, and to hell with any game officials that got in the way.

You still don't get it. After reading a few more of your comments in this and other threads, I don't think that you ever will get it either.

You won't believe this either, but when the word gets out about you, there's gonna be a whole bunch of umpires that won't want to work with you. It's a matter of trust. I know that from experience also.

That's my subjective opinion. Feel free to dismiss it.

Going to the umpire after the game is an excellent thing to do, but what if the error is correctable at the time? An incorrect base award immediately comes to mind.

I take it from a previous post you do not officiate baseball, but I seem to remember you do work basketball, so I will use a basketball example. The rule changed in high school a few years back regarding not shooting free-throws on a team possession foul. Assume it is in the last seconds of a tied game the first game of the first season of the rule change. The offensive post player pushes the defender in an attempt to get position. The officials forget about the rule change and signal a one-and-one for the other team. If an official/parent is sitting in the stands behind the bench, and he leans forward and whispers in the coach's ear to remind him of the rule change, is he a backstabber?

Yes.

If he's going to remind a coach about a rule change, he's also going to tell the coach when he <b>thinks</b> that a call was blown or missed also. Anybody that thinks differently is just incredibly naive imo.

Quite simply, officials are held to a higher standard than parents. You're one or the other. If you're there as a a parent, enjoy the game and don't try to officiate it. Anybody can sit up in the stands and criticize the officials. We call them "fans". If you are an official, you don't sit behind a rat and publicly critique your fellow officials to that rat.

Some people understand that. The ones that libel/label an official that misses or screws up a call by calling them incompetent hacks or mopes obviously don't understand that. And I doubt that they ever will, unfortunately.

I can tell you from experience that once someone gets a reputation for commenting negatively and publicly on his fellow officials at games, he's going to have a hard time finding regular partners. He quite simply will not be trusted by other officials. And deservedly so.

There's constructive criticism and destructive criticism. Officials should know the difference.

Jmo.

I have worked a few of my daughters (catcher) 14U games. The team, and especially my daughter, knows that I am a stickler for rules. I know I should not be working her games, but when the umpire pool is only ankle deep, it happens. I try to forget where the teams are from and who is playing and just “see” the plays and call what I see.

Do not know about others but when my kids played I was simply a Dad. I didn't care whether they won or lost. Just wanted them to have fun.

That's the BIG difference between today and "back in the day" When I played there were no coaches/ no umpires and MOST IMPORTANT No parents. We simply played and had fun. Made up our own rules depending upon how may players we had.

In the beginning since most of the parents knew I umpired, would ask me many questions, etc. I would therefore, go by myself somewhere away from everybody and simply watch and enjoy my kids play.

Here's my motto

1. Coaches Coach
2. Players play
3. Umpire umpire and
4. Parents well this could be discussed to the "cows come home" but we should be there to simply support our kids and enjoy the day not get "bent out of shape" over some call.

Bottom Line: For the most part all who have played baseball WILL GET hosed at one time, but on the same token we will also have calls go in our favor. It's a Game and if the worst thing that ever happens to your son or daughter is that they get called out on a poor call is to thank your lucky stars.

Pete Booth

My comment on the OP in this thread:

You can only wear one hat at a time. (I know -- someone's now going to post a picture of someone wearing two hats, or the video of the guy setting a world record by wearing 567 t-shirts. HA Ha.).

Players play. Coaches coach. Umpires umpire. Fans cheer.

Don't cross the line. When (name redacted) told the coach about the balk not being called, he was wrong, imo.

I don't let coaches and players to go into the crowd and fans are not allowed into the dugout.

So any parent/fan who is sitting in the stands has no business going to the dugout and talking to the players or coaches.

Fans can yell anything they want from the stands but they shouldn't be walking to the dugout and talking strategy to coaches or players. If they feel an obligation to get involved in the coaching aspects of the game, put on a uniform and get in the dugout.

Just one thing to add to that, and it's only my opinion also....

Maybe I'm lucky, but I have never met an official in any sport that <b>deliberately</b> missed a call or <b>deliberately</b> made a call to try and screw a team. I'd be naive also to say that it's never happened though, especially after reading about FU calls. I have heard some officials talk about it, but I've never seen them follow through.

Competency and integrity are two very separate and distinct attributes when it comes to officiating sports.

Hi Jurassic

FU calls is a completely different subject. It should not be used as a "spiteful" measure by an umpire to get back at someone.

Here's my definition of an FU call.

In your sport (basketball) you can issue a Technical Foul, a Flagrant Foul in which the team suffers. Not only do they get 2 Free throws but the ball back again.

In baseball there is no such tool. We basically have 2 choices Either Eject or "send a message"

Here's what I am talking about. I had a mens league game. Real good lefty on the mound with a mean hook.

I called strike 2 on the batter on a curve that hit the outside corner and made him look bad. He proceeded to take his bat and draw a line (as to show me up) and said "Hey Blue I would need a tree trunk to hit that one"

At this point I can Eject which some would do OR to keep him in the game "Send a message" I chose to send a message especially for this age group. When I didn't toss B1 F2 knew what I was doing. He set-up some 7-8 inches outside. F1 threw it right there and I rung him up for strike 3.

The next time this batter came up he said to me "Blue can we start over" I said sure and no problems the rest of the game.

I agree with you that an Official should not give an FU call simply to be vindictive or "carry a grudge", however, depending upon the level of ball IMO the FU or sending a message call can be a useful tool.

Pete Booth

If I'm in the stands of my son's game and I see a rule misapplied, I am going to let my son's coach know. Why not? Umpires can and do make mistakes. If the mistake is in rule interpretation, the umpire should be man enough to suck it up and correct it.

The umpires shouldn't be bigger than the game and the concept of don't you dare point out that an umpire made a rules mistake is making the umpire bigger than the game. By all means, don't disagree with a judgement call in public, but the rules are the rules.

I read on both this and other forums, variations of this sort of thing all the time. Umpire uses FYC, or makes some sort of smart-aleck remark to a grown man, and "nobody says a word", or as in Pete's example, otherwise eats crow.

In my world, that guy would have been ejected after the called 3rd. He would have dropped his bat, got in my face and said, "You're f#$^ing horse*&%t!" In my world, when you bite an adult rat, he doesn't slink away into the shadows, he bites back.

I'm not saying you handle things wrong, or even any differently than they are handled around here, only that the players here don't take it without a fight.

You guys slippin' something in the water coolers?

Be careful with this one. Who's to say you are right.

Case and point.

I umpired a HS game with a fellow official and we both had kids playing in LL at the time. This was the Sr Division.

Also, at that time in FED F1 could not "check a runner" (rule has since been changed) unlike the OBR ruling.

LL plays by OBR

The "other teams" F1 "checked the runner" and you could hear this guy all over the park saying "that's a balk" . When he finally realized that this was LL not HS he is the one who ended up with "egg on his face"

Here's another twist

There is a double dip. One crew for game number 1 and another crew for game number 2.

Your crew has game number 2. As officials we are told not to say anything when it's NOT our game. You see that crew number 1 missapplied a ruling. What are you going to do?

Answer: You should do NOTHING as it is NOT your game so IMO the same should hold true when you are an umpire spectator.


Side Note: When the fans know you are an umpire, it will get to the point where you cannot enjoy the game because they will constantly ask you questions and ultimately ask you to critique the official

To each his/her own but as I mentioned before when my kids played I simply came to watch and enjoy as I couldn't care less whether their team won or lost as long as they had fun.

If I'm there in the suit, that's a whole other issue. As to whether or not I'm right on the rule, let's just say I haven't lost any bets recently.

Pete, in both football and basketball, we can also send a message simply be verbally sending a message. Instead of a technical foul or yards walked off, we can simply say to the player something like "If you do that or anything like that again, you <b>will</b> disappear." It's a warning <b>and</b> a promise. Said loud enough or transmitted to his coach, it also lets everybody know what's gonna happen if the ballplayer steps out of line again. It serves the same purpose as an FU call without actually having to make an FU call.

Thoughts? Is the same idea used in <i>beisbol</i> also?

Btw, I do know that different sports have their own little ways of policing conduct that might be applicable to that sport only. That's why I'm certainly not denigrating the usage of an FU call.

Yes, you are right, you are lucky.

Honestly, Pete, it was fun but it was also a constant argument. In all of this having fun, the competition to win was still fierce. Better than today? Yeppers and noperrs. Few played, only if chosen, today many play with being chosen forgotten.