To Be Mad Or Not To Be Mad?

[RadioBlue]

Originally Posted by tankmjg24

...all of the disgruntled complaints came within the dugout and were not directly said to me but more in a way so that I would hear.

... which is a chicken$hit way of saying it directly to you. If you eject or warn in this situation, of course their retort will be, "I wasn't even talking to you!!" The best response to that is, "I know who you were talking to." It's not argumentative and it almost sounds as if you're agreeing with him. It avoids you getting into a pi$$ing match with an upset coach. All it says is, "I know what you did and in my opinion you did something worthy of an ejection/warning."

"I wasn't talking to you" is an attempt to deflect responsibility and/or guilt.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by RadioBlue

... which is a chicken$hit way of saying it directly to you. If you eject or warn in this situation, of course their retort will be, "I wasn't even talking to you!!" The best response to that is, "I know who you were talking to." It's not argumentative and it almost sounds as if you're agreeing with him. It avoids you getting into a pi$$ing match with an upset coach. All it says is, "I know what you did and in my opinion you did something worthy of an ejection/warning."

"I wasn't talking to you" is an attempt to deflect responsibility and/or guilt.

Exactly. I'm not going to react to quiet-ish griping in the dugout -- I can handle that. When it becomes loud or prolonged, I'm stopping it. Your words are exactly the words I'll use, too.

An experienced coach will knock it off immediately unless he wants to get run. Other coaches may need to be trained by getting ejected once or twice. That's OK, it seems to get quieter once those coaches leave anyway.