- May 29, 2015
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the delay with no play to be made and then the reaction to walk over to the batter is peculiar
That’s one way of saying it …
And, I think the only way to stop coaches like this is to call it in every game every time it happens.
Agreed. Calling it doesn’t necessarily mean administering an immediate penalty though. It needs to be called out though.
Something was mentioned about the umpires or the coaches “were warned about this teams’ antics.” I kind of glossed over that before, but I probably shouldn’t have. Warned by whom? If it was a tournament director level issue, then I would agree with allowing the umpires to come into the game considering past acts committed in that tournament.
I would also agree that if an umpire gets that team more than once, they will have that “past knowledge” to act upon. My objection was expecting an umpire to act on the word of another coach/team/parent.
Umps likely don't do anything with the initial hard "tag", but catch/punish the retaliation.
A tag can be a disguised aggression, but it is still a game-related action. Retaliation is not. So yes, retaliation will ALWAYS be seen more quickly.
I have this discussion with my students multiple times each year: That wasn’t self-defense. Self-defense comes before or during the aggrieving altercation and is intended to stop harm. Acting afterwards is just revenge intended to cause equal or greater harm.
The intelligent player / coach / parent doesn't do or teach this because of the impending retaliation. Some sports do a good job of allowing players to settle matters. Obviously softball isn't there yet because we see moronic plays like this one.
The more leeway an umpire gives to this foolishness the more they encourage it.
I would hope they don’t teach it because it is just cheap and dumb. If all that is holding you back is fear of retaliation, you are almost at that same place.
Agreed on the leeway. However we cannot just become a capricious judge, jury, and executioner. The rules are written so that we can jump there if necessary, but we shouldn’t solve every problem with a sledgehammer.