Arguing balls and strikes: Ejection by Base Umpire?
 

A not-so-hypothetical question: In a travel ball 16/18U round-robin game, a head coach (on defense) rants from outside the dugout to the PU about strike zone. This is the second time in the game. The coach is not profane or super prolonged, but gets personal: "You're giving them an advantage by not giving us that strike. You have to start calling this both ways...." (etc). It's loud. Loud enough to get the attention of everyone with an interest in the game, save for one person.

My partner on plate was hard of hearing.

Would I have been out of line to toss this guy?

Not necessary. Explain to him the error of his ways.....

" Coach, that's ALL!!"

It usually works for me, but I do have the 6'6" thing going on....

Some guys get all the breaks :)


If anyone on that team had already been warned, 8.4.C directs the person be ejected

you are a team if you are the senior man with that authority call time approach the coach tell him he is being disruptive to the game and state "enough" your warning.

Thanks all for the advice. Next time, I'll give him the warning.

Interestingly enough, I had his team this afternoon in the tourney championship game. Not a peep out of him.

This actually goes beyond arguing balls and strikes. This enters questioning an umpire's integrity. He is accusing the umpire of cheating. You can still warn him before ejection, but it isn't necessary. You say it isn't profane? What can be more profane than questioning an umpire's integrity?

The variable is your partner. Is he really hard of hearing or is "not hearing" i.e. ignoring this guy his style of game management?

Depending on my partner I might run this guy or I may simply call "TIME" to draw his attention and then give him "The Look". Or let my partner handle it, and be ready to go in and buffer once my partner moves beyond his "ignore the idiot" phase.

Legitimately hard of hearing, damn near deaf.

If you know your partner has hearing problems and the coach said something that crossed the line, why wouldn't you dump them?

I would warn first... likely long before it got to where it seems to have gotten in the OP ... but after the warning if he keeps it up, BU is definitely within his rights to toss the guy.

Not to minimize the good and helpful answers or hearing problems;
but was it the top of the 1st? ;) :rolleyes: :D

The manuals sure don't state on how to deal with hard of hearing situations. I've worked games with deaf school teams where sometimes, the only person on the team that could speak was a player who was partially deaf so the player would actually handle most of the coach-umpire interactions. If I were working with a deaf partner, I'd still do as standard mechanics as possible, but I would not tolerate coaches taking advantage of my partner's disabilities. Once working with a deaf team, I let the coach use his cell phone to type messages when he had questions about rules/situations/etc. They were pretty cool and appreciated the efforts to bridge the gap in communications.