I think we've all officiated enough games to understand that blowouts happen - bad sportsmanship happens, and there are things that might be legal, but cross over into the potential to blow up in the wrong situation. When a player is doing something to try to win or score or advance or whatever, that's one thing. When they are doing it to taunt, it's something else. I suspect we've all been there. And I suspect that if we described our situation to someone else, it might not sound like taunting. It's one of those things that you know when you see it.

I really don't like the notion that it is the umpire's job to protect the feelings of the players. Actual unsportsmanlike behavior, sure, but it is not our job to protect the self esteem of less skilled players. That you would mention having players batting left handed (a well used technique to keep the score down) would seem to indicate you do have a threshold on such things that is too low.

Besides, as Mike points out, a legal play must be allowed.

Again! You had to be there............period!!!! I thought it was unsporting and I stopped it. I wasn't about to let it escalate into something that could have been stopped "before" anything ugly happened. They could have protested all day long. It was my judgment cuz that's what I do and the coach apparently agreed cuz it stopped.

The move is legal......period. And the coach probably stopped it because you said to stop it. They do things like that, you know.

Do you know where the team was from? The description fits a girl from my area who does this from time to time. I want to say she plays at 16U level, but that's a guess. She has blond hair and I think she also bats from the right side on occasion. I haven't seen her put a ball in play yet doing that but did have a couple of fouls.

The team is out of the Phoenix metro area. I had people talk about something like this years ago, but this is the first I had actually seen it in person.

If I remember correctly, some people refer to it as the California drag bunt.

I would love to see a video of this just to see if what I'm picturing in my head is right.

You say she drops her left hand and swings the bat round her back, then takes it again and drag bunts. Wouldn't that mean the ball is being hit with the bat upside down and she's holding the barrell??