ASA coed tournament this weekend. The TD only supplies one set of balls for round-robin play on Saturday, so we used the same set of balls for six games. Near the end even the allowed illegal bats (see additional rant following) could barley hit the ball to the outfield. After this macho young gun weakly pops up to shallow left field, he starts yelling at me to get new balls. "Not our job, you want new balls you tell the TD not me, in the mean time we will play with what ball is supplied by the TD."

The other thing about this tournament is the TD got tired of answering questions on non-approved bats declared halfway through round robin play that ALL bats were now legal. So out come the cats, darks and freaks. Man, there is a big difference in what those bats can do. My question, should we (the umpires) have allowed the use of these bats. One of my fellow umpires suggested that we walk off the field. But I over-ruled as we did have an contract (implied) with the tournament to supply umpires.

Bugg

That is the TD's call and if this was a sanctioned tournament, you are covered by insurance no matter how stupid it gets.

However, I would have made it known to the TD that you would make yourself available to any player bringing legal action as a result of an injury caused by a batted ball.

Thank Mike,

That is exactly what we did. At the time I was just tring to keep our umpires on the field. Funny thing the local UIC for NSA has told our guys to walk if it were an NSA tournament allowing non-approved bats.

Bugg