Had a horrible Doubleheader today... my fault for doing young travel ball. Anyway, couple of issues that came up I would like to get feedback on:
What do you guys do about enforcing the pitchers glove rules? I am referring specifically to the color specs 'must be uniform in color, including stitching, lacing and webbing. The glove may not be white or gray in color.' I routinely run into problems with telling the coach that the pitcher has to use another glove since his glove has significant amounts of grey or white on it. I rarely enforce the 'all one color throughout'. What do you do? Does 'the glove may not be white or grey' mean no white or grey on it? I can understand lettering or stitching, but not a 1" border of grey around the entire perimeter of the outside of the glove or an entire finger or two. I know I can rule it has to be uniform in color instead of worrying about the grey, but I don't want to have to get into it with every pitcher that comes out there with a glove that has brown and tan on it as well.
Also, I had a kid throw the bat in the first game of our doubleheader. Warning to coach, he tells batter. Second game, happens again, although not very flagrant - warning again to coach. Batter up again, foul ball, thrown bat, hits catcher in foot, but not hard, warning directly to batter as I hand the bat back to 'hold on to the bat'. Batter up final time, slams a triple to the fence, throws bat, I step around a bat that does about 3 rotations in the air at chest level before it hits the ground, almost hits catcher and myself. I walk out to coach as he congratulates his kid (yes, his kid) on a great hit and tell him I am removing the Runner from the game for throwing the bat and placing other players in danger, despite several warnings. I just made them replace the runner on the base instead of calling the runner out for action. Besides not giving so many warnings next time, any input?
Lastly, after telling coach in pre-game meeting to make sure no pitchers have white or grey on their gloves when pitching, and having to tell this coach to replace 2 other pitchers gloves because of this, when I tell him on new pitcher to replace his glove, he storms out and says, 'this is ridiculous, I have played in 4 tournaments with him using this glove and no problems!', I said well all I can say is he is not using that glove while pitching in this game. He retorts with 'I am just gonna take his glove and make him pitch with nothing, will that make you happy', I told him to finish watching the game from the parking lot. Of course he says that since I am tossing him, then he is going to continue to give me a piece of his mind and then walks from the dugout to about 6" away and tells me what he thinks. Only thing I could really think to do is stare at him and wait until he was done and say 'I appreciate your input coach, now get off my field'. I probably wouldn't of tossed him, but in the first inning of the first game he was giving me flack for making him keep his equipment out of the field of play, not calling obstruction on the 3rd baseman while his runner rounded 3rd and bumped into him (the kid scored easily at home), and my strike zone, admonishing me to 'make sure I call it both ways' before the other team had even been to bat! ...
Oh yeah, one more last thing... sorry. USSSA uses revised MLB rules, and there is nothing about jewelry in their revision, so therefore it reverts to major rules. Of course this coach had a fit "this isn't little league!" when I had his player remove a Phiten necklace. Man I couldn't win for trying!
Anyway, thanks for letting me vent, and for any input on maybe what you might of done different, that is, besides not taking the $100 for doing the DH in the first place! lol
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