Another thing I have noticed the last 10 years or so is the extraordinary number of players who have taken it upon themselves to engage an umpire on a bad call, respond to some ragging by the other team, etc...And the worst part is that the parents don't seem to want to police this themselves (and some seem to encourage it).
In 1998, my team was playing in an 18U AAU Tournament at Disney. We were in a quarterfinal game, so we had been playing well for the previous six days. One of my players, after an inside pitch to him was called a strike (strike one by the way), took it upon himself to draw a line in the dirt to "show the umpire where the pitch was". I was coaching 3B. As soon as I saw it, I screamed at the player and told him to have a seat on the bench. I was ejecting him. I knew the umpire would eject him, so I beat the ump to the punch. The tournament was playing Federation rules, so any ejected player would miss the next game as well. By taking him out, I preserved him for the next game. The ump even told me it was a good thing I did what I did, cause he was two seconds from ejecting him from the game.
The player's parents were incredulous with me. They felt that I embarrassed their baby and didn't understand why I made such a big deal about it. The ump overheard them blasting me, and to his credit, walked up and explained to them I saved his butt for the next day. They didn't care (or didn't want to hear it). To them, I showed their baby up. I tried getting through to them, but ultimately told them if they didn't like it, they could head on back home with junior...and I'd collect his uniform later.
I just can't believe the looks and comments I have been seeing players and parents make to umpires. Just ridiculous!
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