First - opposing pitcher at their place is taking warm up pitches in top of first. He's wearing a black compression sleeve with white stripes on it. We say something and he removes it. No problem.
Second - our pitcher does a snap pick at first. Ump calls him out and it was a good call BUT our first baseman drops the ball. Ump said out stands because it was during the transfer. I'll be honest and say that it benefitted us but it was one of those tough plays in that it could have went against us because it wasn't obvious he was transferring the ball from glove to hand. If he had called him safe I wouldn't have said a word it was that close. Well this ticks off the other team and they start chirping.
Third - bang bang play at first and our runner is safe. I didn't see it because I was talking to a kid in the dugout. But the other team is now furious. One of the coaches is jawing from the dugout so the field ump restricts him to the dugout. Doesn't stop so he tosses him. Umps meet with coach and overturns the ejection. Turns out it was a fan on the outside of the dugout but really close to the opening.
Fourth - One of our kids has a 2 - 2 count with a runner on first. The next pitch is a ball but our batter thinks it's ball four and heads to first. Our runner on first heads to second and makes it. Defense never made a play on him. Coach says something and the umps meet. They return the runner to first and says that can't penalize the defense over our batter's action. I say it's the defenses responsibility to know the situation and the ball was never dead. He comes back with if our runner going to second would have been tagged out then he would have protected him and put him back on first.
Fifth - new pitcher for the other team late in the game. His glove has grey on it and we say something about it. So the umps meet again and say it's not a distraction. We come back with it doesn't matter because the rule says gloves cannot have white or grey on them. He thinks about it and makes him take it off. You better believe the entire crowd was ready to beat us and the umps up over this one. One of their coaches started smarting off to us about cheating or something. We just told him that they make rule books he can order and read like we do. Yeah it was ready to get ugly because we were winning and this school dominates us in every sport except baseball.
It was just a weird night where I got to see some calls that you don't really get to see very often. Overall I thought the umps did a good job but they earned their money tonight.
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