Good EJ?

[Rich]

Originally Posted by rei

Then let's address your use of terms towards players. You refer to guys as "human garbage", "rats", etc... $100 bet that you could have met any of these guys at a social gathering and hit it off just fine, and thought "highly" of them.

Maybe you should examine how pretentious you are! The pattern forming (well, let's face it, you formed it LONG AGO) is that you feel you are more important than the game. It is human beings out there playing sports. In adult leagues, they also happen to be the guys paying for you! These are guys getting up early every day, going to earn a buck, spending those bucks to join a league.

While I am not out there to be a target for them, I am also not so thin skinned that I am going to toss a guy just because he voices a disagreement about my call. THAT is a good way to piss people off and seek retribution.

There is absolutely no harm in allowing people to expel a little emotion on the field. There is about a 90% chance that if the guy in the situation wasn't ejected, that the next inning he would have apologized to the ump. Ok, it could have gone down this way provided that the ump is hustling, doing a good job, appears ENGAGED in the game, not standing around with the "important" look in-between plays and pitches, etc...Since I lost that body language, I quit getting the big blow ups like that.

My description of the player came after he thought it would be cute to let a pitch hit me and think he was going to get away with it because "I can't prove it." Although I know his history, I didn't even realize who the catcher was until I looked at the lineup card in the car after the game was forfeited.

The players get respect until they show that they can't return it. They don't get free shots at us on the field, just like we don't get free shots at them (nor would we want to take them). It's a two way street.

Before I think of myself as hired help, I'd quit officiating.