It Could Always Be Worse

Hockey, basketball and wrestling are three brutal sports to officiate, the fans are on top of you.

Agree with MST 100%..........My most regular partner is also a basketball official and I have always been amazed at the amount of grief that basketball officials receive and the proximity of the aggressors to the officials...

Numerous times the police have had to escort the crew from the gym....

its unacceptable behavior in any sport....

And yet, baseball is the only sport which allows coaches to enter the field of play to argue with officials.

Baseball is also the only sport that makes the coaches wear uniforms!!! Go figure....

The two are related, sort of.

Basball coaches (managers) are often positioned in live ball territory to carry out their responsibilites. No other sport I know of either requires or allows that to occur.

I always enjoyed being a basketball official. Had to give it up about 7-years ago due to the pounding my legs were taking. One thing that really helped in transition to baseball was you have to be pretty thick skinned, no rabbit ears, since the crowd is right there. Both the coaches an players work you pretty hard as well. Some baseball offcials could take a lesson in that as I see some,(not many)quick trigger umps who spend too much time hearing the peripheral noise that accompanies sports and officiating whether it is from fans or coaches.

That is two of the four things unique to baseball, what are the other two. It is also true in softball.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael S. Taylor:
That is two of the four things unique to baseball, what are the other two. It is also true in softball.

Too easy:

Defense controls the ball.

Ball is irrelevant to scoring.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael S. Taylor:
That is two of the four things unique to baseball, what are the other two. It is also true in softball.

How can something be unique to one sport if it also exists in another?

(Sorry, it's the teacher in me...couldn't resist )

quote:

Originally posted by OldFox:
Unique to baseball/softball -

From an officiating side - An official sees a rules violation, but doesn't do/say anything - but waits for the offended team to complain. Don't think that happens in any other sport.

This was the rationale FED used when it required umpires to call base running violations they observed without appeal.

quote:

Don't know if this is unique - but certainly not done in most sports - but the official makes a call on almost every pitch (hit or not) - the exceptions being a runner and/or batter runner arriving at a base without a play.

Most other sports do not have a "pitch".

Head Coach=Manager
Defense posesses the ball.

In a very heated game (alotta close calls), bottom of the 7th, tied 6-6, 1st and 3rd, 1 out, fairly new blue behind the plate, I'm on bases ... pitch goes over head of catcher/ump and lodges in the fence. When new guy threw another ball back, I signaled dead ball and for the runners to move up and then the s**t hit the fan. The visiting coach was livid-er and said "how can you call that in a critical situation"? My response was, "I don't change rule applications based on game situation/who wins/etc."
Walking to my car a lady fan from winning team says "I wouldn't have your job or anything in the world". I thought I'd play dumb and smiled and said "why, I emjoy this job".
She said "are you kidding me ... the way they treated you back there?" I told her that: "we have to go to all day clinics on a nice Saturday; we have to take tests, buy equipment, clean equipment, attend rules meetings, remember the pregame speech, take a call halfway to the field where the assignor says go back the other direction and do THAT game instead, leave for the game when it's raining here but not there but might be raining there when I get there, etc etc etc. Listen mamm, coaches are the EASY part". All she could muster was "wow".