I remember back in the winter Jason, Tanny, and Shep all making fun of Dan about something he claimed to not know. I think it happened on transition too concerning the Ric Flair ignorance.

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#MoreThan Mean

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I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane.

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You must be a wonderful human being because I wouldn’t last even one game without slugging one of the parents. Or multiple parents.

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Speaking of umpiring games, I saw something last night I have never saw. Right before the game started the umpire walked to the fence where a large group of fans were sitting and asked for their attention. He went on to tell them that he understood he was going to make calls that they did not agree with. He was going to make some good calls and some bad calls. He asked them to lay off him and in between innings he would come back to the fence and would take any questions from anyone on a specific call and he would explain what he saw while he got a drink. But if anyone could not abide by this and went about riding him he was going to have a low tolerance and would just send them to their vehicle. It really seemed to catch people off guard and had them watching what they were saying. The night went pretty well and he even explained a couple things at the fence that people had some issues with.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Ump didn't show up to two playoff (9-10 YO) games last year. So seeing as I am qualified to do many things in life, I stepped up and umped using some odd catching gear. No clicker, nothing. Best umpiring that league saw all year. Not one parent thanked me. Nor did I get my $50.

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

Nice.

So you just carry old catching gear around with you for the heck of it?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

No! I scrounged odd gear from the teams' equipment bags. stuff that nobody's used in years. I was wearing shin guards for somebody about 4 feet tall.

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

the catcher's chest guard was just big enough to cover my heart. looked like I was ready to dig into a lobster.

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

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I don't ride the umps as it serves no purpose. But I have had several umps come up to us along the first base line. One time I asked him about rule in between innings because I did not understand the call, and he politely explained it to me. Most of them are pretty cool and just want to be around the sport.

One thing I have never understood after nearly a decade of watching youth baseball and softball is the way home plate umpires tend to squeeze pitchers. Consider these observations:

1) Kids are much smaller than adults, obviously, and so their strike zones can be tiny by professional standards. Most leagues adjust for this by being generous with the high strike and usually giving some leeway on both corners. And yet, I consistently see umps squeeze in several of those places, which makes no sense.
2) When umps call a decent zone in the first inning, the game moves much faster because kids (and with the coaches' encouragement) tend to swing at stuff near the zone. If they do not, then the coaches tell the kids to just stand there and take pitches.
3) Some coaches are trying to work the on base percentage angle in youth sports. While in the short term, you will get more base runners and beat bad teams, they neglect the bigger focus on teaching kids how to hit a ball. When kids are told to not swing until they have a strike on them, they tend to have trouble getting the bat off their shoulders.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Yeah I agree with you. I have coached softball for several years and one of my biggest frustrations is having a meeting with the ump before the game and almost invariably he will say that he is going to have a large zone. That is completely fine with me. But then usually after the first inning that zone shrinks down. Just keep a big zone. This is younger kids. Make them swing the bat.

Probably the most upset I have ever gotten with another coach was a couple years ago in a 9-10 yr old softball game the opposing coach is loudly telling all the girls to not swing the bat before the inning and continued telling them while he was coaching 3rd base during the at bat. I was furious and told him about it. That is not coaching and it is not teaching kids the game.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

it was the last week of our adult slow pitch league, there were enough teams that it was two nights. well apparently nobody told the umps because the next day with 1 quarterfinal game, 2 semi finals games and 1 championship game. we lost the quarterfinal game and i umped one of hte semi and the championships.

mind you i've never umped before really but how hard is it. this one idiot argued balls and strikes with me his first 2 ab's. its pretty easy, you can see where the ball hits the dirt (no mats). that said, i think the other 19 guys there realize that this isn't my job and if i get one or even a few wrong whatever. finally his 3rd AB i call the first pitch a strike (maybe a little high) but still borderline. he is literally looking at me like i punched his kid in the face and he's like "seriously?" and i go well guys, i'm done, you guys can call the parks office to sort out when to finish this (tight game in the 4th/5th) and i start walking off the field. of course i finish it and everyone gives that guy shit. you better dam well believe i got my 100 bucks. had to fill out a w4 or whatever.

We had an interesting umpire situation in my youngest's game the other day. The rule in his league is no leadoffs, and the runner can't leave the base until the ball leaves the pitcher's hand. In the last inning of a tied game, we had the bases loaded, and their pitcher goes through his windup and pretends to pitch---but holds on to the ball. Naturally, our runners took a step off once they thought the ball had been released.

We first thought the pitcher just messed up and somehow couldn't get the ball out of his hand, which would have been a balk. But then everyone realized the other team's coach had instructed the pitcher to do that intentionally, in order to have the runners called out for leaving the base early. Talk about bush league. I thought there was going to be a fistfight between coaches (thankfully I don't coach anymore). Eventually the umpire just called it a non-play and their pitcher ended up walking in the winning run.

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Why wouldnt it have been a balk?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Not sure if they call balks at that level...might have just been a warning (if anything). But then it became a question of whether the balk would take precedence over leaving the base early. It was ridiculous and an embarrassment for the parents.

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I love the coaches that just have the kids run non-stop. grounder to short, throw pulls 1B off the bag (if he's lucky not to throw it over the guy's head), runner keeps running. 1B throws to 2B, nobody's covering, ball goes into CF, kid keeps running. CF corrals it and heaves it to the backstop somewhere. runner is going home no matter what.

I love youth baseball.

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

In 10 years, I think I only ran into one umpire who had issues. I couldn't see why he was such a miserable ass & working kids games.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

That was something we preached every day we weren't playing a disciplined team. Especially against this one team from Oak Forest who wouldn't show for or later agree to home & home games. Once the prick coach didn't bother to even call & cancel.

We went out there later that year. When it was 27-1 in the top of the second he told my 3B coach that I could stop fucking him in the ass. He wouldn't agree to call the game. I already had my kids batting from the other side of the plate in the first, coached 3rd the next inning and told him(& the parents in earshot) what I'd already had my kids doing, reminded him about how he had screwed me over twice, and how I'd asked him to concede after the first inning.

He finally quit that inning. Last I heard, OF got him out of their league.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

The strike zone thing is my biggest complaint with youth umpires. I coach a 12U softball team, and would much rather have my players thinking they need to swing at anything close than have them keeping the bat on their shoulder because the ump is calling strikes like it's Justin Verlander painting the corners.

They are.

You guys have patched umps? Some of them are pretty rigid on the zone.

My team has 3 pitchers who throw a lot of strikes. Half the teams in the league have none. So it becomes a sliding scale where they get an extra half plate on each side because they are so bad.

So I just want consistency.

...To a point, we had one umpire announce "better be swinging fellas, gonna be a big zone tonight", I replied, "hold on, did the rules change that I'm not aware of? The strike zone is pretty cut and dry, you can't just arbitrarily change it on your own. If you need to be somewhere else, you can leave, we can get someone else." In a shocked look, the umpire apologized to me, and yelled "play ball". The other coach, did the slow-clap for me.......we then proceeded to get slaughtered I believe, as our pitchers got squeezed, and walked a gagillion batters. Last time I ever spoke up.

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Blackhawk goal, scored by number 20, Al Secord.

Was his name Brian?

we get asked to go to various kids sporting events and i'm always like hell yeah. i have 3 daughters who love ballet and excel at it so i have to live vicariously through other peoples children when it comes to sports.

my favorite is like super little kids that aren't paying any dam attention. ball is hit, the pitcher is walked over to the ball by the coach who proceeds to chuck it past the 1st baseman who is watching something, meanwhile the kid is just trucking around the bases.

all the little quirks like putting your best out fielder in right field instead of left because the kids can't swing fast enough to pull a ball. all that stuff is hilarious to me.

i coached flag football when i was first married with a buddy and his kid. i taught the kids to basically spin their way down the field. i also taught them to fake throw the ball into the face of the defender so they'd flinch and you could run around them. We killed teams, then they implemented a no spin rule. they still rocked the fake throw but man alive did we get a ton of other coaches pissed off at us.

my best bud is the president of the local little league. they use a ton of teenage umps. they just say make it consistant. zones change from game to game depending upons the teams. if they stuck to the book in many games, the games woudl take forever as it would just be a walk fest.

We'd all like to believe the strike zone is cut and dry. But any fan realizes that it changes with every ump and every game. I was told that high school umpires are taught to call pitches that are within one ball width of the plate. I don't know if that is true, but it would make sense. You certainly see the high strike called a lot more, and almost anything that doesn't hit the ground gets called.

The strike zone for highly skilled major leaguers is one thing. But when you have 10 year old kids, rather unskilled, throwing to other (small) 10 year old kids, why would the strike zone be the same?

Imagine Chatwood trying to throw strikes to a 4"10" kid?

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Hawaii (fuck) You

It was nine years ago. All I remember is that he was a shorter, pudgy, ruddy faced guy around 50 with brown hair.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.