Integrity
 

I was working our ASA 18A/B Regional National Qualifier this last weekend, and one of my games on the dish had an interesting scenario.

Team A's batting 9 with 2 subs listed. They use their 2 subs somewhere early on in the game. In the top of the 4th inning, Team A is behind 11-0. Team A's F6 has some kind of hip problem, and has obviously been playing in some amount of pain. Coach of A comes up to me and asks to talk to me and Coach B "in private." We gather, and A tells us that his F6 is the leadoff batter, and he doesn't want her to get on base. He asks, "This is going to sound very unusual, but Blue I want you to call 3 straight strikes on her, wherever they are."

I just looked at him in amazement, and said "Coach, I'm not going to compromise my integrity by calling strikes that aren't strikes. If you want to pull her out of the game, you can play shorthanded and take an out, or you can have her swing at everything that's pitched. But I'm NOT going to just call strikes on every pitch."

His response: "I don't want to embarrass her."

We discussed it further, and he finally decided to take the out. He went back to her, already in a batting helmet and standing there taking practice swings, and talked to her. She wanted to bat, so after a brief discussion, he turns to me and tells me that he’s not going to pull her. She’s going to bat. Ok, so I inform Team B and we play on.

She winds up getting put out at 1B on a U3K.

Coach A comes up to me after that half inning and tells me that she hurt herself even more with that at bat, and that he should have probably pulled her out, but instead he’s going to make a defensive change and put her in right field.

He then compliments me for my comment to him about not compromising my integrity, and apologizes to me for even going there and putting me in that position.

I'm still amazed that this whole situation happened...

I have encountered these types of situation that for some reason, a coach always wants the umpire to be the weapon of choice during a blow out.

They have no problem with an umpire looking bad, but if you suggest THEY be the bad guy, you would think you just insulted their mother.

Go figure.

Yeah. Exactly.

The other thing that was flying through my head was "Sure, I'll call a strike in the dirt... then you can blame me for my inconsistent strike zone, and how it cost you the game. No thanks, buddy."

Good for you for sticking to your guns, SRW. You were absolutely right in standing your ground.