Hijacked from Basketball Board... with a baseball twist

[Kevin Finnerty]

Pete, this is obviously a complex issue, because I am normally one of the small percentage who speak up and/or stand up to anyone who I see victimizing a person or animal. I don't care what or who they are, they get a lesson.

But as an umpire, I can't penalize a guy and his players because I know he's a slimeball. I am going to possibly umpire a game or two this year for a school that has hired a coach that I have known for 12 years, and know for certain that he is a vile, wife-beating, child-beating, home-wrecking, player-assaulting coward a------. But I am going to walk out onto the field, and give his and his opponents' players and followers a safe, fair, respectful game like I always strive to give, irrespective of how tainted some coach is.

Now, in his particular case, when he turned up at that school, several of us notified the school's officials of the unique background of the guy they're hiring. But he's a the friend of a major league playing millionaire kid and his dad who rebuilt the school's ballpark, so that connection makes everything irrelevant to the school.

The greatest sin that is committed on the baseball playing young people of this nation is the way they go about picking coaches. Some of the coaches I have seen should be nowhere near the game, and others, like the guy I just described, should be nowhere near our young people. (In his case, he shouldn't even be around his own kids.) But you know what, Pete? The vast majority of young men actually rise above and tune out the B.S. from the worst of the worst that are screaming in their ear. I know it sounds harsh, but it's really true.

And this whole thing has to change. I have done and continue to do more than my part to change it where I live, because I love the game and I want it to go right for as many people as I can reach, but until real baseball men are coaching in the majority of our schools and leagues, this improper conduct and the mediocre baseball that results from it is bound to continue. It's sad, and MLB's half-hearted recognition of it is sinful.