How to get in trouble

[DTQ_Blue]

Worked with a different "new partner" today and got a clinic about how to get yourself in trouble.

I'm BU and we have a 0-0 game in the 4th inning. He calls strike 1 or 2 on a pitch that looked high and outside; a poor call IMO, but till that point his zone was decent. We all hiccup once in awhile.

First base coach says something about the call and then about this happening every game. He looks like he can keep going on so I from A tell him that's enough. Next pitch he says something else, more of a blowing off steam-type comment than crossing the line, but now the issue is who is going to control the game, us or him, so I essentially tell him, next comment and he's out of the game.

Here is where things began going downhill for my PU. The coach had shut up and we could have resumed the game. Instead my partner comes up the line and begins engaging the coach. Of course then all the parents are on his ***.

Next inning, same team at bat, he calls a girl out on a 3-2 pitch very low and outside, a very bad call IMO. The worst part, and telling about where his head is at, his mechanic couldn't have been more indecisive, long, long, long hesitation, girl is several steps toward first and his right arm goes up with all the self confidence of a rag doll; if there was a verbal, I don't hear it; about as indecisive a strike call as one can make. I'm in C, coach starts toward plate, PU ejects him immediately.

Here's where it got scary for a minute. As he's leaving the field, he picks up the bat of the girl who just got rung up. He holds it out toward PU and says "Do you want this bat?' Of course, I'm thinking that he's going to throw it or worse; he then says "You just took it out of her hands." His assistant tells us after the game that he was trying to fire up his girls. I guess he thought he was Lou Pinella.

I think that by coming out to engage this coach when he didn't have to my partner took his head out of the game. Decent zone for 4 innings with 1 or 2 hiccups, and then a terrible call/mechanic in a crucial situation.

The offended team scored later in that at bat and then closed out the time limit game. I was very glad to get off that field. I don't ever want to take myself out of a game like that.