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USA Softball tournament, early in my career (so I was a bit of a greenhorn redass). Pretty much the situation you describe, but first, a quick prologue. These tournaments are quality tournaments run by a joint venture of a local organization and the park district. Facility staff are all regulars and work these things all summer. As I am approaching the gate and wheeling in my gear for the day, HC BigPants is harassing the little old ladies working the gate about wanting them to let his parents in without paying or him not having his pass or some of his usual BS. I nod a sympathetic nod to them on my way in. During a morning game, while I am PU, HC BigPants presents as the HC at the plate meeting. In the middle innings, he decides he is going to start taking phone calls while coaching third base. I call time, take out my lineup card and walk down to discretely talk to him. I tell him he needs to take that off the field. He says "Yeah, yeah." I walk back and look up, and he is back on the phone. We are playing this game. "Coach, take it off the field!" "I need to deal with . . . " "I don't care coach. You can't have electronics on the field and I don't need you taking a line drive." "Do you know how much money I spend at this tournament?" "I don't care. You are going to have plenty of time to take calls if I have to remove you from the game." He relents, bitching and complaining the whole way. Fast forward to a late afternoon game with one of the several HC BigPants teams. The head coach presented to us at the plate meeting is a young female. Mid-innings with BigPants' BigBallers on defense. I have a whacker at second base, calling the BR safe as she stretched a single into a double on a lazy play by the outfield. Crowd is screaming and yelling. Here comes HCBigPants on the field. I assume he is headed to his pitcher, but he keeps coming to me. He starts very loudly with, "How can you . . . " I cut him off. "Who are you?" I don't think he even remembers our interaction earlier in the day. "I'm the head coach and . . . " I cut him off again. "No, sir. SHE is the head coach," and I point to the coach who came to the plate meeting. "I'm the one who writes the checks and I had to coach another team so she was just . . . " "And you were not at the plate meeting, so you are an assistant coach for this game. You cannot be out here." "You don't know how much money I spend at this . . . " And I launched him. The TD was already watching and had to get him off the field. I became the stuff of legends (for the next two days). The little old ladies at the gate heard about it. They brought me donuts the next morning. One of them told me, "I hate that @$$#0!3. Thank you for kicking him out, somebody should have done it a long time ago." So, no, tournaments don't make it confusing. They make it very clear. The person who comes to the plate meeting with the line up card is the head coach. We don't care what your org chart looks like.

I ejected a batter for throwing his bat during a tournament. I did nothing the first time, The second time, it appeared he was throwing his bat to gain momentum running to first base. I then warned the coach if the batter threw his bat again, he would be ejected. He did throw it again and he was ejected. Nobody complained. If his coach took exception to the call, I would have used that old standby, "for safety reasons."

There is a difference between a high school game and a random tournament. I know who the head coach of my high school teams are (either I have had them in the past or because I jumped online to look up their name pregame because I want to be addressing them by name from the get go). Tournament game, the adult who comes to the plate meeting is the head coach for that game. I am not entertaining any other adult, I don't care what door their name is on. If the head honcho wasn't at the plate meeting, if he wants to come out and try the "I'm the head coach", then it is ok coach, you refused to come to the plate meeting, you are now restricted to the bench. If he doesn't agree, then he can leave and I am back to the coach who came to the plate meeting. END SCENE

Of course it doesn't - why would they want to take culpability and think it through to its proper conclusion? Their goal is to "do something"...they don't really care if that "something" is stupid. These are the people who end up in Congress.

Understood, Its a problem in most areas. However, if the pay was much better, and the abuse wasn't there, then we'd have lots more umpires. Sadly this is lost on most associations and organizations. JMO.

Home Plate Out of Base Path baseline Korea 2026.05.26.mov

Yeah, I casted a wide net and already got a large fish. I know there are more in this school....

I'm sure @MadMax has thoughts.

2016 Interps "SITUATION 7: What is a head coach who is restricted to the bench allowed to do? RULING: Even though the head coach is restricted to the bench and may not occupy a coaching box, he is still the head coach. He still represents the team in communications with umpires and may address and coach base runners, the batter, defensive players and other coaches. He may hold team conferences at the dugout or bench area. He may leave the bench/dugout area to attend to a player who becomes ill or injured and may request to talk to an umpire concerning a rule or rule enforcement. However, he shall be ejected for any further misconduct. (3-2-1, 3-3-1f Penalty)"

Yeah - it becomes an interesting argument when the coach says, "there is no rule for a batter being called out for throwing his bat...you're supposed to eje...uhmm...never mind." I do agree with you in my experience, with all the talk about local bi-laws, for all the leagues, communities, tournaments I've coached and played in over the past 40 years, I've yet to see this in print - everyone talks about it, and is sure it was discussed at some pre-season/pre-tournament meeting, but in the end you're left with an umpire who either doesn't know the rules, is on a power trip, or, most likely, feels he must do "something" and thinks kicking an 8-year old out of the game is a bit harsh.

FWIW, I'm probably going to let one assistant take on the ability to ask question(s) and have a discussion. 1. I'm not going over to the dugout to have a discussion with the HC. 2. As long as we are completely civil, I think the team still deserves to have an advocate with the officials.

Not out of the basepath.

I'll let others go into more detail, but the main idea is to heat the plastic to where it's pliable and then reshape it to fit your body and hold it there, or restrict it in place somehow, while it cools and re-hardens. You are re-forming the hard plates to fit your shoulders and arms mostly. If you do it a few times; heating, shaping and then keeping in place while it cools - then you'll end up with a CP that fits tighter to you than one out of the box could ever fit. You can use a heat gun (preferred) or hair dryer (same results, but takes longer). Don't overheat or you'll lose the shape entirely, no puddling here please. The best method is slow and steady. Remember to remove the padding first so that you are only heating the plates. I've seen guys use hard objects (i.e. a basketball) to reform the chest plate and then tape the plate to it or maybe they would rubber band the shoulder parts around a football or something of the sort to get the plates to form better to their shoulders or arms. Some do heating, restricting and then put the CP into a freezer to 'flash-freeze' the cooling and do several cycles. There really is no right or wrong way as long as you end up with a CP that fits you better than you started with, but I recommend exercising patience and take it slow. It's easier to add more heat to make a CP more pliable, than it is to reshape a melted plastic plate.