When did they change the balk rule?

[Kevin Finnerty]

May you be the first to know:

Before I get started, I am not making this up.

I had a league rivalry type of game today and the home team's pitcher--a gigantic kid who throws a good fastball and a telegraphed, but tight slider--is getting torched. I hear this loudmouth blathering about a couple of close pitches, and at the end of the inning, he comes on the field and I see that it's an assistant coach. So I put the guy in the dugout and order him not to say another word for the rest of the day.

The guy screams at me, and I toss him! It's like it was set up! My partner said, "Didn't you say you've never tossed a coach?" My chairman said, "You tossed a coach??!! Well, you picked the right guy for the first one."

He was the pitcher's "former professional pitcher" dad (why do they have that going on?), who's also huge, but fortunately very stupid. He had to be physically removed, and in L.A., there are a whole lot of schools who have L.A.P.D. right on the campus at all times, and this was one of those schools, so there were no leaving-in-one-piece concerns.

What an embarrassing fool that guy was. And I have to say, I didn't give him a big wave. I said, "You're an assistant coach; you are in the dugout the rest of the ballgame and not another word." Then he screamed his former pro crap, and I said, "Those are words; you're gone." Then I walked away and told the head coach that he's gone and asked him the details while the other coaches and an administrator pulled the guy off the field.

It felt good, actually. You guys were right. I didn't just toss to get it done, it was a major breach and a big, out-of-control blowhard making it. There were apologies all around for the blowhard, and my partner gave a major thumbs up report on the whole thing.