What happened to me (Suspended)

[tankmjg24]

There is a big difference between the height of the mound and coaches on the playing field. One I cannot control as I am not the groundskeeper, the other I can. From watching games that I did not officiate, half of the confrontations could have been avoided had the coaches remained in the dugout. I know of one other umpire in the league who enforces the rule that the coaches must remain in the dugout. The majority of the new guys are too intimidated to confront a coach and the majority of the veterans are waiting on the time limit to hit in order to receive their cash.

One issue that I think exists is that while each age group is within the same league, they almost operate independently. For example, 12U has their own league director and assistant league directors that are different than the 10U league director and assistant league directors. The president and vice president are the only board members that are consistent. I have spoken with the 12U league director a few times and he was a very approachable nice guy with rationale. The 10U league director was a different story.

If I had to do it all over again, I would still have enforced the fact the coaches should be in the dugout. What I think I would have done differently is when the board member came out onto the field and tried to push his weight around, I would have handed him the baseballs and walked to the dressing room. The one reason I did not do this initially was that by me doing so it almost guaranteed that a bunch of 10 year olds would not get to finish their baseball game. I think that I was in a no win situation though.

To protect the innocent, I am no longer located in West Virginia and the incident did not occur there. I am now located in Alabama where the situation occurred. I guess I need to update my demographics haha.