Was it always this crazy?

As I mentioned in another thread I agreed to be an assistant coach on a rec team. It has been a while since I have coached. Almost every game the amount of abuse the umpires (16-18 year old kids) take is crazy. It comes from coaches and parents. This past week I simply had enough and left our dugout and tried to get a board member who was working the concession stand to watch and intervene as necessary. He told me if the umpires had problems they should come and get him.

Bottom line, am I just forgetful or has it gotten worse? I mean almost every pitch not called the right way drew some sarcastic comment. Our parents were even drawn into it so I had to go to the stands and tell them to knock it off. Seriously am I going crazy?

Don't know if it's worse, but I've seen no improvement in it over the years, and it's perhaps the ugliest thing in sports that is tolerated like it's part of the game.

I do think it has gotten worse.

If you want to yell and shout there is a Team for you, just not ours.

Don't know if it's worse, but if left alone it feeds on itself.

Funny reading this. Before one of my best friends and I met each other we were youth baseball umpires. He told me he probably led the lead in tossing coaches out of games. Apparently he would take no guff.

It probably has gotten worse, just as society has gotten a lot less polite in many ways overall. Read the comment section in blogs and online media articles and you'll see how free people feel to speak their minds. Luckily we don't get a lot of that here, although enough to keep the mods busy from time to time.

Add to that the serious importance everyone seems to place on youth sports and you get the kind of behavior you're talking about. Not that I want to go back to the days when people wore a suit and tie to go to a ballgame or fly on an airplane, but sometimes it does seem like a little more formality might not be such a bad thing.

DS quit umpiring because of the grief he took from 2 different coaches in the same game..........when he was 13.

I used to ump as a teenager back in the late 70's early 80's. In my opinion, the fans are much worse than they used to be but coaches are actually better. The fans on our team are not mean, but they argue almost every call and don't let it go for innings. We are working to improve, but it's an uphill battle but we are moving in the right direction.

My favorite is when they pitcher throws 2 pitches around the same area and they call the first one a strike and the second one a ball. When the fans yell you just called that same pitch a strike I would love to see an ump stop and say. "you are right the first one was a ball count is 2-0" . It might shut them up for a minute.

canyonjoe said:

I used to ump as a teenager back in the late 70's early 80's. In my opinion, the fans are much worse than they used to be but coaches are actually better. The fans on our team are not mean, but they argue almost every call and don't let it go for innings. We are working to improve, but it's an uphill battle but we are moving in the right direction.

Click to expand...

About 20 years ago, my younger brother's LL coach walked over to the other side of the field and announced to the opposing team's parents that if they didn't clean it up, he and his team were leaving.

Cowdogz said:

DS quit umpiring because of the grief he took from 2 different coaches in the same game..........when he was 13.

Click to expand...

Cowdogz, I totally understand and was thinking the same thing. If I were those kids umpiring I would eject everybody, announce I was quitting, grab a coke from the concession stand, and walk off into the sunset. I am serious.

Though I agree umpires take a lot of unwarranted grief at this level I do wish leagues would make more of an effort to hire qualified adult umpires.