Smittyisms

[ozzy6900]

Just came back from my game today. Four man crew (State semi-finals 18U) and I was U1. R1 with a huge secondary lead and F1 has R1 dead to nuts. R1 dives back, tag down but R1's fingers had the bag first. "Safe! Safe!" F3 looks at me like I just stabbed him in the heart. Defensive coach steps out and screams, "How is that possible? Sir, can I appeal that call to you?" Fans are going BS!

Coach comes to me and again asks, "How?". "Fingers got to the bag before the tag, coach. You had the runner dead but he was faster. Gotta call it fair, right coach?" Coach looks at me, smiles and says, "Okay Mario, I'll get my runners to grow their fingernails by the next half!" Fans still ticked off but F3 heard the explanation and he was okay with it. Coach was a perfect gentleman from then on also.

Fans were still complaining about the call for the rest of the inning, but that is the difference of being right there as opposed to being 100' away. Here was a perfect situation were if I called what was expected, I would have screwed the player. Personally, I'd rather screw the fans than the players.

Regards