Is whining & *****ing more prevalent this year?

[UMP25]

From my own experiences and those of my peers who share theirs with me in casual conversations...

I don't number a lot of ejections per season, but I did get my first, an early one, on Good Friday (April 2nd). I happened to be working with Bob Jenkins as we annually work the series involving two CCIW rivals. I'll leave the school names out of this to protect the innocent.

I tossed the visiting team's head coach because he yelled to me, "You're phucking horrible, Randy!" after I called out his batter-runner for missing 1st base on a leadoff double. (The fact that his B-R stumbled around first, almost fell down, and tried to regain his step while walking right over the bag made the call a bit easier.)

So after I eject him for swearing at me, he yells, "For what? What did I do?" After I politely tell him, he goes bonkers, whips his helmet to the ground, charges me, and bumps me about 4 or 5 times. Oops. Houston, we have a problem.

In the first game of a doubleheader I had yesterday afternoon, in the top of the first inning I called a balk on the home team's left-handed pitcher because he clearly stepped toward home (I was plate man) when throwing to first. It wasn't even a question of being close. I seriously thought he was going to pitch since his foot came toward me but the ball went to first.

The head coach goes ballistic, starts telling me, "You don't know the rule. Learn the rules." He continues such comments from the dugout, including comments about "angles," so much so that even though I am loathe to develop rabbit ears and tend to ignore comments from the dugout, I don't ignore them when a line is crossed or when they won't cease. I attempt to shut him down when starts his "You don't know the rules" diatribe again. OK, Coach, whatever.

The head coach in question then starts his threats by yelling, "You're never working here again. You're done!" He continues these comments between games as the crew is leaving the field. We're on our way back to the parking lot and a good 50+ yards away from the field and this genius is still hurtling these comments.

Flash forward to the evening, when the gentleman who assigned me this game, a colleague of mine, tells me the head coach in question didn't wait until after the day was over to call and complain about me. The @ss called my assignor immediately after the first game ended, in-between games. Wow. I think I set a precedent, because in 33 years of umpiring, I've never had a coach or manager complain about me that quickly.

What makes things worse, I think, is that my assignor tells me that I'm scheduled to see this same team on the road in May, and that I'll "most likely be removed from that doubleheader," with no replacement game being offered.

I can live with being scratched from this idiot's home games because it isn't worth the drive to the neighboring state, but what irks me is this coach might very well be successful in having me removed from his visiting game's contest next month (a local venue), end up costing me some bucks, effectively making this a de facto fine. Granted, I don't do this for the money, but this approach I think is bullschit.

All because of a simple balk call, which brings me back to this thread's title. I've had several of my partners in their games get biitched at like crazy all because they called a no stop balk or the lefty foot balk, etc. So, is it me, or are these coaches just getting whinier?