Daniel

I thought there could be no player/umpire relatives @ cooperstown?

ooooo I wish Adrian would have canned his a$$ at about :12

that's odd..its just blank...maybe a bug earlier?

I hope this all was a joke?

http://espn.go.com/watchespn/player?id=538052

"That's a good pitch!!!" :meditation:

Came across this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qLCCbvwk1w&feature=related

Your first is problem is working these games. I've never had a TD insert himself like that, and as an association we wouldn't take it nicely if they did. I don't instruct him on being a TD after all.

I like the way Jax is thinking here. I wanna play on an 18+ girls team. ;)

I concur Warren. Not sure what he getting paid to do this, but there's definitely some sort of compensation. I just can't believe we actually have guys who believe he is a "good guy" and will work for him, yet each one of them acknowledges his stupidity on the field. I hope he doesn't try to call me at the last minute, and if he does, he'll be getting an earful of curse words. :hopmad:

He's a complete tool, really. He even made a personal comment to me, something to the effect of "We'll you're just the perfectionist" when I made him wear a cap the one game he did work with me. Did I mention he brought the tournament rules sheet onto the field with him and read verbatim to the coaches during pregame? I'm just pissed at the way the organization is handling this. Coincidentally, we have an association meeting this week before this tournament, which just happens to be at a small building, next to where this guy is scheduled to work a rec ball game right before the meeting starts. I hope our guys see him in all his glory. :wave:

Well here is the back story. Our assignor does a pretty damn good job, well respected. The umpire in question is a total douche, VERY smitty-like. I umpired with him ONE game since I started umpiring, and it was in fact the last game I'd ever do with him. Shows up late, wears pants a shade a way from being white, no hat, white socks, rolls his sleeves up, etc etc. He does HS too, and the assignor there barely gives him JV games. He does not get called for these tournaments because of this. So he decides to contact one of the TDs for an upcoming tournament and convinced him to let him assign umpires. Initially our assoc. board said to boycott it, and now they are playing into it and allowing it to happen! WTF. This a$$hat doesn't deserve to assign games, much less work them. I saw the email asking for umpires and I sure as hell will not work them. :spit:

What do you call a guy who goes behind our assignor's back, to see out becoming the assignor for an upcoming tournament by going directly to a TD and asking to assign umpires (and now getting to!) as he himself never gets assigned games? Back story to follow..

You're okay as long as your strike zone is not a postage stamp. :D

Yikes. I swear I've had these two 14U teams, and coincidentally, I was also BU. R1 only. Ball hit to F3. R1 doesn't move off the bag. F3 jogs over and tags the base and then throws the ball back to F1. :wow:

Yikes, they look a bit "dated".

One word... WOW! He makes the rest of us look like smitties! :crybaby2:

FWIW the rule was changed to this two years ago, to add the coach ejection.

The "sub" never occurred since it was unreported, so the person they "subbed" for is still in the lineup. And bam...you nailed it, literally. You have to draw a line somewhere. There may be rules where we get lee-way in judgement, but this isn't one of them. PONY is the only one that I know of that requires removal of the HC.

Scheduled for a DH last evening. We get to the third inning of the second game and the lights still haven't been turned on for our field (even though the field above us had theirs turned on) and it was getting dark. Several coaches tried to get in touch with several "high ups" from the league via phone and could not. We agree if we don't hear anything back, we'll go one more inning and then we'll call it because of darkness. One of the coaches who wasn't part of the convo berates me about how they paid money to get in this league and that we're getting paid $70 (wrong) a game to "ref", and that we will wait for them to be on. Just then the lights start to come on and see that one of their contacted folks came but returned no calls to let us know they would be turned on. Great communication! Coach apologized and said "Never mind anything we just talked about! :spit:

PONY rule set, softball. It was not announced to me or the opposing team, and it was caught. No $hitstorm ensued. And semper, I'm surprised to hear this: They pay to play in the tournament and abide by the rules. Thinking other wise could prove to be a piss poor mentality, IMO. Oh, and they are not MY customers. If that were so, then I'd have to abide by the "customer is always right" rule - and we won't touch that one. I've taken approach the approach that I came to the game to umpire and enforce the established rules, and it doesn't have to make the teams happy. We still have plenty of tournaments with a lot of teams, and I still manage to get plenty of assignments, so I'm doing something right. I'll edit to note that if they don't like the rule, complain to HQ and get the rule changed.

A few weeks ago I had my first "unreported sub", ever. The rule set we use requires the unreported sub to be disqualified from participating from the game, and an ejection of the head coach. After the game we were talking about it, and our assignor/UIC for the tournament was present and said this to us in handling unreported subs for the tourneys he assigns: "These teams pay <insert $$ here> to play in these tournaments. If this comes up, just tell the other coach you got the change and just forgot to report it to them. I do it all the time and never had any problems." Hearing that made me sick to my stomach. Is this really a good way of handling this to avoid the ejection and disqualification of the player?? Sure the penalty may seem "harsh", but that is the rule we are paid to enforce. I don't care what teams pay...I don't set the tourney fees. :violin:

Any more updates on this?? First time reading this thread, but this would be cool! :hi5:

Yikes. Kill it with fire. NOW! :FIRE:

OK, I have not umpired and baseball in a few years and have become solely a softball umpire. To those of you who work softball, have you had plate meetings where everyone on BOTH teams came to the plate meeting? It annoys me to no end because it looks silly and isn't necessary as everyone starts BSing, making the plate meeting longer. Coaches/Captains only please, thanks. I once told a coach no about that and got a funny look, as he said "But its a good motivation booster!!" and he proceeded to bring his whole team out with him anyway. :crazy: