Inspired by Tad's "adult temper tantrum" thread.

Ive seen some great stuff this year. Then a lot of it I just hear about from other coaches.

One team and coach was removed from 8U after flipping out in the 2nd inning of game and screaming at the opposing coach, his own coach, parents and the guy who runs the field. This was all over a safe out call at first. In the second inning of the second game of the season. He was apparently kicked out of his last league too.

The parents of my team are pretty normal (or they at least keep the insanity contained in a harmless whisper)

One lady told me she wanted to punch the opposing coach in the throat last night. I thought he was an alright guy.

He did give a take sign on a 3-2 pitch though. That was surprising.


Also I have one girl with three little brothers that absolutely cant be contained by either parent. They've run on field during games (none of ours...yet) and practice, last night one of them ran in the street repeatedly and then ended up telling his mom and dad to "shut the hell up" when they told him to sit down. Opposing parent was giving them some parenting lessons and I cant really blame her.

Then I do have one assistant coach who thinks his kid is Jennie Finch when in reality she's much more interested in soccer and has trouble in a few key areas (throwing, catching)


Then there's a parent of an 8U girl who wears his hat sideways like the Fresh Prince. His daughter was pouting after a game and I saked whats wrong (ill likely have her on 10U next year) and she said she didnt get to pitch. Fresh Dad says "well she did pitch yesterday"

So I say "oh, well yea those are rules, Im sure Scott would love to pitch you as much as possible"

She nodded. As I walked by her dad he tells me "some rules are made to be broken"

I'll add more as we go along

This happens at every sporting event. Parents are out of control. I've seen our young kid umps get abused to the point of tossing someone out and then walking away from the game after the shit stirring continuing.

The best is when they scream improper rules from the sidelines and the coach has to yell at them.

my 15-year-old son started umpiring little league games a couple weeks ago, 9-10 year-olds mostly. he has been working the plate and he tells me that he gets his share of shit each game, mostly from parents and not the coaches. he says that generally it has to do with balls called inside/outside. most of the fans and the coaches see a belt-high pitch and assume it is a strike, even if it is a foot outside, so he hears groans all game long about that. i told him that if a parent says anything to him about his strike zone to ignore them, and if a coach asks to give them a clear explanation between innings. i told him to never explain himself to the parents, fuck 'em. once you talk to them they know you can hear them and they will never shut the fuck up. they can sign up to be umpires any time they want to if they have a problem. i cant even bring myself to go and watch him work, i think it would drive me insane.

so far it has been a pretty good gig for him - $15 cash per game, and he does 5-7 games a week. no major altercations yet, just ball and strike calls.

I'm probably the biggest whacko. I follow my kid around the diamond explaining what he should be doing at all times.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

mofo - did he get any training?

I see some absolutely horrible umpiring by high school kids without a clue.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I did that as a 15 year old back in the day.

Ran a couple of parents from games.

Ran a coach, too.

For the most part, it wasn't bad, though...decent money for a couple of hours work.

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Or when the assistant coach (who you had to assign a fake title of "defensive coordinator" so he feels important) tells the girls there's a force at home with runners on 2nd and 3rd.


Two games ago I asked an umpire if we had a time limit. An opposing parent yelled out "dont let him intimidate you!!"

People are crazy. We had a girl that was so bad our parents wanted us to walk off field. Her zone was ridiculous but that happens. She was reversing calls and didnt know the rules.

But still, this kid was like 15 with braces and some of the moms seriously wanted me to like get in her face and start yelling. Im sorry, but that's just gonna happen.

yeah, he actually had 3 weeks of training, including some simulated games. what bothers me is that they dont have enough adult umpires, so a couple times he has been teamed up with ANOTHER brand new ump, and that gives me the cold sweats just thinking about it. i was a coach, and i know i was always nervous when the umpiring crew was a couple high school kids. a lot of them dont hustle very hard or communicate very well. i actually quizzed my kid on rules myself before his first game, and told him that whatever he calls, call it loud, explain it well, and move on. dont get into arguments. if things start getting dicey just say "Play Ball" and get things moving. a 15-year-old ump arguing with and/or tossing a 40-year old adenelined-up dad coach is a bad look for everyone.

I don't even do that with experienced umpires. I've never seen an ump change a call when he was yelled at but I have seen him continue to go against your team when that happens.

we had two instances of "substitute" umps. kids with no training at all. brutal.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Yea, I mentioned that and a parent said "it literally cant get any worse"


It got worse

im coaching my daughters softball team this year and we had a teenaged girl umping home plate one game last week, and one of our girls swung at a pitch and hit it right off of her fists during her swing. i mean, it was clearly a strike, she swung! but she also hurt her knuckles and started to cry, so our head coach (i was coaching 3rd) went out to check on her and the ump awarded her first base! the other coach said something to the ump about it, she had a conference with the other ump in the field, and she reversed the call. now it was a terrible call, but i was TOTALLY impressed with this umpire, she was unsure, she called the more experienced ump for help, fixed it, and moved on. she didnt get flustered, and she handled herself real well. some of the kid umpires are pretty good and try hard.

Yea, we've had about half and half (adults/teenagers) and we've only had one that was real bad.

The kids tend to call a much more traditional strike zone. The adults kinda expand it and have a "fuck you tell your kid to get the bat off their shoulders" attitude. Im fine with either.

How does a couple of umpires run a parent out of a little league game? Can't the parent just say "blow me" and stay? Are there bouncers at these things?

i had a friend of mine who was coaching one of the teams my son was umping for tell me that my kid did a good job, but that he thought he was a slave to the strike zone, that he needs to open it up and get the kids swinging. i thought it was a pretty fair criticism and he wasnt being a douche about it, he just was trying to help. but if he does that, oh man, he will hear all kinds of shit from the bleacher umps. i told him to just use your best judgement and be fair, but if a ball is belt high and 2 inches off the outside corner, you have to expand it a little.

im staying out of his business though, i told him if he has trouble that we should talk it over that night, review any rules that may have come up. I want him to be good, this could be a great source of income for him for the next 3 years in high school.

One incident from my childhood always sticks out.

We were in A-Ball, so probably 12-13 years old. I don't remember why it happened, but one of our parents (he had twin boys on the team) gets into it with the umpire. The ump tosses him out, says something like "You have to leave the property." He proceeds to grab his lawn chair, literally walk across the street, and sits down in it. Just starts screaming "I LEFT THE PROPERTY. I LEFT THE PROPERTY," and watched the rest of the game from the empty lot across the street. I remember, as kids, most of us were cracking up.

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I saw an Alsipian try the "blow me, ump" method last year (lit up a cigarette and stretched out like "im not going anywhere".----kinda funny if not for her having a kid).

She caved and walked off when someone threatened to call cops.

Back when I was umpiring, we had a league official (president, etc) present at all games. If the umpire ran someone, the protocol was the league official walking them to the parking lot. If they refused to go, there was a protocol for the cops to be called to escort them to the lot.

Generally, if someone was a big enough asshole to get themselves tossed, they would be embarrassed enough in front of their friends and family to just sheepishly slink off to their car until the end of the game.

Both parents I tossed (one mom, one dad) actually apologized to me after the game.

The one coach I tossed wound up banned from the league - the next game, he pulled the same shit and went after the league secretary with a bat.

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a league commish is present every night at our fields, if they wont go they call the cops. ive seen it happen TOO many times.

what towns are you guys in?

I umped in Lake in the Hills back in the day and never really had too much trouble.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Yea, its a no win situation. If they call it by the book, coaches are dying when an 8-9 year old throws one an inch off the plate and its ball 4. But then if they expand it, the parents get upset.

Everything you told him makes sense to me though. Making them LOUD and CLEAR calls cuts off a lot of stuff before it starts.

I'm from a small town in central/southern IL.

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Arlington Heights.

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Thanks for the answers. Had no idea you could get arrested. Nice.

Sometimes I want to toss my own Mom from the games when she goes to games. But that's a different thread...

Oh, man, my buddy's mom was so loud back in the day. He was a pitcher, and she would constantly be screaming "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatt," not in a mean way, but just way too excited over little things any time Matt did anything. I think she died five years ago.

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My son is one, and I'm already dreading little league, after reading many stories and this thread. I would love to coach him, but I feel it's more hassle than joyful. Kind of like how i serve on my HOA's board. You never hear when you're doing a good job. You just wait for the pitchfork mob to show up at our meetings, yet none of these twats will serve on the board.

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I guess she left it all on the field

R.I.P.

Condolonces to Matt. Is it Harvey, Cain, or Moore? (Surely these screams led to an MLB career)

Stairs

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