the good and the not so good

[TexBlue]

Complet agreement with CB and Mike. I don't take a lot of crap off the coaches, but I do let them have their say. If the situation dictates, they may get a little more say than at other times. To me, the only time necessary to eject a coach is when I've lost control of a game. At that point, it's time to get control back. Like Little Jimmy's coach, if they want to continue dwelling on the past and not taking care of the present and won't shut up, get rid of him. Of course, when he crossed that line without requesting time ( I assume this is the way it happened ) he was gone already.

That being said, I've ejected more coaches in the last 10 days than I have in the last 3 years. I've called over 2400 games now and tossed 9 coaches. I lost 3 of them in the last 10 days. 2 of the 3 came back after the game and apologized several times for their behavior. And you know what, Mike's right (again), they said they had learned a lesson and wern't going to act like that anymore. All of these were younger age coaches and were just trying to do the baseball thing on the softball field. They now understand they'll get a lot more from the blue if they talk in a calm, polite and courteous manner, than "the 300 pound gorilla" act.

I new an umpire who used to use the inning indicator on his clicker to keep track or hiw ejections for a night. I never, never, never looked forward to calling with him. He thought it was a measure of his testosterone level, as to how many he threw out.

I personally think it is more of a good indicator of the quality me as a blue, if you look at how many coaches you left in the game. Sometimes that's the hardes thing on the field to do is to find a way to control the game, settle folks down and keep them in the game, withoug letting them be the show. The kids are the show, not the coaches. That's why we're out there, to let the kids have fun, no matter what level it is, it's still a game . I tossed my 1st coach out for cussing out his own player on the field in front of team for not catching a bad hop ball. I'd warned him once to settle down.
Twice was enough. Let the kids have fun.

Oh yeah, the blues need to have fun too.