Almost got ejected from a game this afternoon

[Ken Krause]

Closest I ever came was in a local travel league. We have that in the Chicago area. Travel teams from 10U to 14U play in a league, which makes it easier to schedule weekday games. There are no championships or anything like that anymore, although there were at one time.

In any case, we're the away team. I am coaching third base in a close game. IIRC we are leading by a couple of runs. It's getting late in the game and I notice that suddenly, when we're up, the strike zone is running from the ankles to the ears. After watching one of my players get rung up on a visor-high fastball I yelled, "Hey Blue, the strike zone doesn't get bigger as the game gets later." He took exception to that comment and gave me a warning, but the strike zone did get back to where it had been earlier in the game. I think I caught him trying to get the game over with so he could move on to whatever he had going on next.

In any case, I said it with good humor, and told the parents when I came in "Don't talk to me, I'm bad." I don't make it a habit of saying things to the folks in blue, but it was an opportunity I couldn't resist.

 

[rockerdad21]

Personally, I find it hard to believe that any good umpire would eject a coach for a comment like "That would be a strike in my hometown"...if that was the only thing said.

I've umpired baseball and softball for over 20 years, and there has to be some give and take between coaches and umpires. Getting ejected for a simple comment like the one above, again, if that was the only thing said, is ridiculous.

Baseball/Softball games aren't about the coaches, but they shouldn't be about the umpires either. This umpire had a tin ear, in my opinion. Something along the lines of "Coach, we're not going to talk about the strike zone" would have been sufficient, if anything really needed to be said.

If the coach came out of the dugout to home plate and loudly and directly argued about the strike zone, and in effect, was trying to show up an umpire, then yeah, that's an ejection. But a single comment from the dugout? I don't think so.

My .02

 

[stephanie]

we had a BB tournament here this weekend, and an ump ended up throwing the whole family out, one by one...coach, coaches dad, coaches older son, then coaches wife...
It was ridiculous...(the family, not the ump)
Their son was in the field the whole time, and you could just see the humiliation on his face...

 

[Coach JV]

I am a bit surprised that PU could hear you above the normally vocal
'bleacher coaches.' Seriously though, I was thrown out once last year
and it was scripted. We were down 2-0 to an inferior team, my girls were asleep.
PU called ball before the pitch got to the plate, batter swung late, he then said 'strike'
(Obviously the right call) I yelled loud-'C'mon Blue get your head in the game, your killing me over here'

I gladly took the ejection, my team was in shock as I never raise my voice. They awoke from their slumber
and won the game with 5 runs in our next at bat.

 

[druer]

we had a BB tournament here this weekend, and an ump ended up throwing the whole family out, one by one...coach, coaches dad, coaches older son, then coaches wife...
It was ridiculous...(the family, not the ump)
Their son was in the field the whole time, and you could just see the humiliation on his face...

Did he throw out the family dog as well?

 

[stephanie]

Did he throw out the family dog as well?

Well, if the dog could climb the fence like the rest of the family, I sure he did!

 

[SoftSocDad]

LOL!

One point of emphasis in our rec league is to lay off the umps, but non-sports people don't really understand why, as they blame the umps for (what they perceive to be) unfair calls at times. In our case, most of the umpires are teenage girls and while not perfect, I think they do a pretty darn good job considering the relative lack of experience. They're expected to be able to call balls and strikes and I feel that seeing differences in each ump's strike zone actually helps the young girls learn to adapt.

As for humiliating our kids, my DD has actually heard me from the stands before and thankfully, she took it all in stride...or at least she acted that way. A few days later, however, she said she preferred it when I'm completely quiet. hehe She does like the security of knowing where I am, though...probably so I won't get out of line.

 

[Dave D]

I'm interested in getting some feedback from some of the umpires on this thread, especially. 1st game Saturday, 14 yo DD closes, throws 2+ innings with only 2 balls called. Up to this point, she has thrown about 75 innings this season with 3 walks. Great control, moves the ball around, rarely throws a ball down the middle of the plate.

Second game, she's really heated up and rolling. Hitting catcher's mitt exactly where it's placed on 8 of 10 pitches. Probably throwing the best she has all year. If the batters don't swing, though, everything is a ball. Opposing coach is even rolling his eyes from the coaching box. After three innings of this, with 4 3-2 walks and 4 hits given up, I ask the umpire if my catcher is setting up off of the plate. Blue says it sounds like I'm arguing balls and strikes, and I say no, I'm just trying to help my catcher define the strike zone. He says, "I never look at catchers. That's dumb."

Was that question over the line? I've asked it before, and never had an umpire react badly to it.

On a side note--One of the dads on the other team said that the umpire was making the kids "throw into a teacup." DW started laughing uncontrollably. Later, she said she thought him say they were having to throw into a D-cup. I told her the zone wasn't nearly that big.

 

[FPump]

I'm interested in getting some feedback from some of the umpires on this thread, especially. 1st game Saturday, 14 yo DD closes, throws 2+ innings with only 2 balls called. Up to this point, she has thrown about 75 innings this season with 3 walks. Great control, moves the ball around, rarely throws a ball down the middle of the plate.

Second game, she's really heated up and rolling. Hitting catcher's mitt exactly where it's placed on 8 of 10 pitches. Probably throwing the best she has all year. If the batters don't swing, though, everything is a ball. Opposing coach is even rolling his eyes from the coaching box. After three innings of this, with
4 3-2 walks and 4 hits given up, I ask the umpire if my catcher is setting up off of the plate. Blue says it sounds like I'm arguing balls and strikes, and I say no, I'm just trying to help my catcher define the strike zone. He says, "I never look at catchers. That's dumb."

Was that question over the line? I've asked it before, and never had an umpire react badly to it.

On a side note--One of the dads on the other team said that the umpire was making the kids "throw into a teacup." DW started laughing uncontrollably. Later, she said she thought him say they were having to throw into a D-cup. I told her the zone wasn't nearly that big.

IMO, no. The question you asked was not over the line, providing that the tone it was asked in was not sarcastic, and based on the tone of your post, it does not appear that it was.
That said, respectfully, your DD's season long stats mean nothing to an umpire. It's his zone, you've got to pitch to it. Some umps just have (what appears to to coaches as) a tighter zone than others. That's softball. Top MLB pitchers keep their own notebooks on umpire's zones for that very reason.

 

[Dave D]

Thanks for the input, FPump. I only put the season info. here to help clarify that throwing strikes to most any zone hasn't been much of a problem for her. I certainly didn't mention any of that to the umpire.