Strangest thing I've seen in awhile

The umpires were wrong. The coaches were wrong. And the school administrators were wrong.

Now I had a situation this year where our AD came over from another field and said he wanted the game stopped because of lightning. We had one umpire get a little upset about that. His comment was something about "that's not his decision; that's the umpires' decision." And while that may be true, if I see lightning or my lightning detector tells us it's time to go, guess what.. get off the field!

LOL...suspend the game but let them run around on the field....they must have been back in their changing area.....not real smart on their part..or the coaches part either...lots of liability to assume

Around my parts, most places have adopted a lightning protocol.  It's based either on time or that annoying flashing/beeping light going off.  Once it starts, the requirement is to leave the field -- go to cars or inside some structure.  I would think it is up to the school administrators (coaches, AD, etc.) to enforce their policy. 

Not too smart.

Any time my son's HS games were stopped due to lightning, the players had to go to their respective dugouts and fans were "advised" to vacate the field and go to their vehicles.

If the lightning was really bad or close by, everyone including players and coaches, had to vacate the field. 

It was a mandatory 30 minute wait from the last lightning strike.

FoxDad, Your description is exactly how it is supposed to be in Ohio. Since i know Buckeye 15 is in Ohio, I would say that school admin, coaches and umpires put boys at risk and also took a risk from a liability point of view 

Where I am, the protocol is to suspend the game and the game will not restart until 15 minutes after the last lightning. While the umps will tell everyone they should go to their cars, they vacate the area and what you end up with, instead of one kid at the plate with a metal bat and one in the ondeck circle, is 20 kids standing around swinging metal bats or leaning against the metal fence dugout.

few weeks ago we had a lightning delay, where do most of the kids and parents go? Under the largest tree in the area. common sense is not very common

Due to an incident where two boys (not quite middle school age) were struck by lightning after a storm had come and gone, most area school teams, Little League, and Parks and Rec respond very quickly when lightning strikes are noticed.  Better to be safe than sorry.

Even if a lightning strike is seen in the distance it's often enough to stop play for 30 minutes. 

One evening during one of my son's home HS games there were lightning strikes spotted, and the game was stopped.  We were in the top of the 4th inning and losing by 4 runs.  We waited for an hour but just about when the 30 min wait was up there would be another strike thereby resetting the clock.  After waiting over an hour, the coaches in consultation with the AD, cancelled the game. 

It was odd that night.  Sky was dark, with occasional strikes, but no rain.

Never did make up that game as it was a non-district game.

How so?  They stopped the game.  That's all they are responsible for.

(In the instance where the umpire did not stop the game when the AD came over, I agree -- that umpire was wrong.)

The umpires in the OP were right to stop the game, but the failure was not having the players and fans seek shelter (dugout, cars, school building) until it was safe to resume play (if the conditions became safe to do so).

Clearing the field / stands responsibility falls on the admin of the school which is typically the AD.  Home team coach needs to take control of his team and get them some place safe.  It's the AD's job to stop the game early enough to allow everyone else to get to cars or open a place in the school (probably the gym most logical) for everyone to go.

Several years ago in Kentucky we were playing on the road and we got a heads up there were tornadoes touching down in the area.  We were at a community park so there was nowhere for anyone to go.  The storm was behind us and heading in the direction of our school.  I made the decision to put my guys on the bus and haul butt to the school.  We made it there safely and I held everyone at school until the storm passed.  We actually took chairs into the parking lot - it was about 10 yards from the door - and watch the sky during the storm (no real rain).  It was beautiful to watch.

I don't feel it's the officials job of any sport to make the final decision.  They have their hands full with doing their job to pay attention to the game.  It's my job as AD to work with them to make the decision.  We had a soccer game last year and a storm was coming.  At halftime I had my phone out showing radar and in my other hand our lightening detector working with the officials as to how much time we had left.  The entire second half I walked back and forth on the sideline checking the weather communicating with the official on our side.  Ended up the game went into OT and in the first 10 min OT period we scored early.  We got through that period and I told the officials I didn't think we could get the other OT period in and safely get everyone out of the stadium.  So we called the game.  The other team's fans lost their mind (their coach was cool about it - he knew they had a full game and 8 OT minutes to beat us and they didn't).  I had to escort the officials to their vehicles and suffer verbal abuse from them (even had to threaten a grandma with being arrested by county sheriff when she said she wasn't scared of me and would kick my a$$).  

+1 for carbon fiber bats, im mean composits. !

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