youth league meeting about coach

The REAL question is, what do the kids think of these parents/coaches?

misspatti

I have seen HS games where the ump has told the runner coming to the plate "make sure you touch home"

I think this all much ado about nothing !

Let it die a natural death and get on with your lives

TR...I believe the situation here might be a little different...the ump told the CATCHER to touch home plate. Sounds to me it's a little more than nothing.

DaddyBo

These are 11 year olds-- matter snot if the umpire talks to the runner or catcher or hitter for that matter

When I ran our LL our umpires, all HS Varsity players, were directed to instruct the kids during the games--and all the coaches knew it

How do 11 year olds learn if you don't continually instruct them ?

But then I may wrong about that , especially with the nowadays WIN WIN WIN thinking--perhaps this is the reason that most of the HS players dont know jack about the fundamentals and many still dont when they get to college

At 11 years of age-- BASICS BASICS BASICS-- they need it

This is a great example of how differently we all view things.

When my daughter played softball, she was on a 10 year old team, so some of the kids were prob 11 also. She was a catcher- and the exact same thing happened.

We, as parents, thanked the ump after the game for teaching her what to do. We weren't the only ones- he helped a lot of kids learn the game, and to my knowledge didn't get anything but thanks for it.

Also, as TR says, these are 11 year old kids. They probably dread having their angry parents embarassing them at LL games. Isn't it supposed to be just a little bit of fun?

TR and AMom...I understand exactly what you are trying to say. I guess the context of type of play, league, game score, etc. would need to be understood before any "definite" answers would be known. The exposure to most of the 11 year-old teams I have had is that these kids had a pretty decent understanding of the game, to the point to where any on field instruction would be sufficiently done by the coach at that time or in the dugout. My initial response was predicated on the notion of "let the coaches coach and the umpires umpire" (make the "safe" or "out" call...don't tell them how to get the out ). It just appears the "slippery slope" concept would come into play once an umpire starts coaching players. The unbiased factor is harder to validate, blah, blah blah. Again, I understand your position, based on experience, and I hope you can understand mine.

Misspatti,
To me this is not about baseball “rules”. Not sure how your league is set up but this is about league rules and inappropriate behavior on the part of the coach. Like amom, I think at age 11 an umpire should help coach in some leagues but this is not the issue. The issue is simply the behavior of the coach. The umpire has the right to eject the coach from the ball park and he should have been ejected. If he does not leave the playing field then law enforcement should have been called. I would not speak at a “meeting”. I would ask for the policies and procedures of the league to be reviewed and I personally feel as if the president and the governing body should take charge and put this issue to rest. In my opinion you are unnecessarily being put between a rock and a hard place.
Fungo

While I agree that 11 year olds need the instruction, what about the coach that was shouting profanities? I for one, would not like my son to be playing on a team where a coach would do this in front of his team. Yes, we get upset when things like this happen, but talking to the ump privately would be a better way to handle the situation. And since he was suspended for the rest of the season and continued to coach anyway, I think it is another bad example set for the kids. I teach my sons, yes we get calls we don't like, but learn to live with it. Just the fact that he blatently coached after being suspended should warrant more than a slap on the hand, IMO.

This reminded me of a game my son played as a 9-10 year old. It was considered a "select" league but was in the fall so also defined as instructional.

My son was pitching and the coach told him to turn and throw to the shortstop to get the lead runner straying off the base. He did. The umps called a balk...but did not advance the runner as they explained the rule to him.

The other coach went ballistic yelling at the umpires. I was actually bemused until I heard him yell, "If he doesn't know what a balk is by now, he has no business being on the field!!"
I loudly smarted off back something about he had managed to strike-out several of his players.

I later apologized to the umpire and my son....who actually heard very little of it. He said that he didn't pay attention when the parents started yelling. He did learn that balk rule and never did it again.

I did not complain to the league but I stayed away from that coach and recommended to anyone who was considering his team to avoid him. It was kind of funny a few years later when they called and asked him to guest play in a tournament and we could turn them down.

IMO, If you do decide to speak at the meeting, you need to keep it factual and non-emotional. You need to be honest about what and how the mom spoke to the umpire and then what and how the coach responded. Keep your spin out of it. You don't need to editorialize about how the coach should not have behaved that way....everyone already knows that.
It also seems that the board could just talk to the umpires and leave the parents out of it.....

Sorry...I did have my discussion based on the lesser issue. I agree with the advice of the others on the discipline issue.

Youth baseball would be great if it were not for some adults.