Umpire's Behavior

[Irish Ripple]

Sorry for the long post…

About a month ago, I was a spectator of probably the worst called game that I have ever seen in my entire life.

ASA 12-U SP

One umpire crew (and she was very very young). Anyhow, IMHO, there were a lot of blown calls by this umpire. And she liked to share her lack of knowledge by giving bad calls to both teams. The worst call came near the end of the game when this umpire allowed a player to run into and knock down our F4, who was standing on the base awaiting the throw. The runner had her arms crossed in front of her chest, did not even attempt to slide, and knocked down the F4 like she was trying out as a blocker in the NFL. She was then permitted to continue around until she reached home plate, when she did the same exact thing to the catcher. This umpire called nothing…and now everyone is yelling and screaming, the whole time our 2nd baseman is lying down screaming with a hurt ankle.

Our coach discussed it with blue and got nowhere. Blue said that F4 didn’t have the ball, and everything was just incidental contact. Meanwhile, the father of the hurt girl is really upset about his kid being knocked down like that and had some heated, but clean words with the umpire. The brother of F4 was entirely out of line, but he cussed at blue for making such a lousy call, and the umpire, in her best unprofessional manner, said the lovely F-word right back at the kid. We made the league representatives aware of her behavior, and this umpire’s response was “well, he said it to me first”.

I found our state ASA Bylaws, and all it says there is that umpires may be suspended who conduct themselves, on or off the field of play, in an unethical, immoral, or unprofessional manner. She ended up being suspended for one week, and she is not allowed to umpire our games anymore. We (as in the entire team, and all of the spectators) were put on probation for the remainder of the season because of this incident. It’s just a rumor, but I heard that this umpire is the daughter of our district UIC, but of course, that’s only a rumor.

My question isn’t about the call, my question is this…What does the ASA code state on the behavior of umpires? ASA code would over-rule any local bylaws, wouldn’t it? And how would have this been handled if it happened in your district?


JP