Assigned Bad Baseball: Funny Story

[njdevs00cup]

I arrived 45 minutes early at the complex this morning to BS with my partner and go over our pre-game. Two of the other umpires walked over and asked which game we had. We were working one of the tournament games on the big diamond and the two other umpires were working a summer rec. game on the small diamond. One of the other umpires made a comment about always getting assigned s**t baseball. He seemed put out that he wasn't assigned the meaningful tournament game. The conversation ended and we dressed. As my partner and I were walking to the field we noticed the umpire wearing his shin guards outside and even better, reaching for the balloon. My partner said to me, "That my friend is why he is assigned s**t baseball!"

[johnnyg08]

There are a few guys in our area who complain about not getting the "good games"...the "what have you done for me lately" type of guy.

[Kevin Finnerty]

The guy who's there 15 minutes before game time telling stories instead of doing a pre-game, who's standing there talking to the first base coach when you go to him for an appeal, who's always popping sunflower seeds in his mouth, who's wearing one of those see-through Official's Choice shirts, who's ...

[Jay R]

I was asked this week to umpire a 13-14 yr old "house league" game which around here means the lowest skill level. I had not done any games this year under 17 yr olds so it was going to be different.

Here are some of the highlights:

While I was geting ready, a coach is getting stuff out of his car. He says:"F***, I forgot the scorebook at home". I look over quite surprised by his language and he was speaking to his son (one of the players).

R1 steals 2B on a foul tip. I hear a couple of parents saying it was a foul ball and he should go back. I try to ignore those comments but then my BU partner (whom I had never worked with before) tells the runner to go back to first because of the foul tip. I'm not sure why. I stepped in and kept the runner at 2B.

R3 and 0 out. Fly ball to right field is caught in foul territory. R3 tags up and scores. Defensive coach comes out and says that you can't tag up if it's foul territory. To his credit, when I tell him he can tag up, he says he learned something. Someone else might have tried to argue.

A batter comes up and says to me:"This is great, it's our first game with real umpires". Probably had parents before, I didn't ask.

[Bishopcolle]

A batter comes up and says to me:"This is great, it's our first game with real umpires". Probably had parents before, I didn't ask.

A beautiful example of how the kids feel about good officiating....gives me the "warm fuzzy" feeling....Way to go!!