-________________________-

[PonyUmpire]

A terrible terrible "Varsity" game..

With 2 outs, in the top of the 5th, #3 from ___________ was thrown out at the plate for the third out.  After making a gesture indicating disagreement, #3 remained at the plate, staring at the home plate umpire.  After being given several warnings by the plate umpire, and given ample time to start walking back to the dugout, #3 was ejected by the home plate umpire.  Bob, who had been coaching 3rd base, insisted that the home plate umpire "appeal" the call at the plate to the base umpire.  When the home plate umpire refused to ask for help, he started arguing the ejection, insisting that you can't eject a player if he doesn't say anything.  Not content with the plate umpire's explanation, Bob returned to the dugout, commenting that he was "this close".  A minute passed and ___________ still hadn't taken the field.  The plate umpire instructed the team to go to their defensive positions.  Bob became argumentative, saying that the plate umpire should do his job and let him coach.  The base umpire, coming in from his position, tried to get the game moving as well.  Bob started arguing with both umpires.  After a prolonged argument, with Bob continuing to dispute the earlier ejection, the plate umpire restricted Bob to the dugout and issued a formal warning.  Bob immediately disputed the restriction, saying that the umpire couldn't do that.  The plate umpire told him "that's enough".  Bob continued to argue, saying that the umpire needed to "do his job".  He was subsequently ejected by the plate umpire.  After being ejected, Bob continued to argue for several minutes, despite being advised that he had been ejected and had to leave.  His tone remained conversational, but he insisted that he shouldn't have been ejected.  After leaving the field, Bob remained on site and continued to talk with players and coaching staff through the dugout fence.  The base umpire informed an assistant coach to tell him to leave.  Although he stopped interacting with game participants after this point, Bob still failed to leave the game site.

 

The kid was their pitcher too.  He was literally their only kid who could throw a strike.  This resulted in a 3 hour game.  Coach really knew the game.  Shame he had to go as well.

 

[lawump]

5 hours ago, PonyUmpire said:

Bob still failed to leave the game site.

 

Then why did you restart the game?  (The question is purely rhetorical.)  Don't restart the game until the ejected coach is gone (out of sight & unable to communicate with his team). Just don't restart the game, period.  Tell him that he "needs to go."  And if you say that a couple of times and he still refuses to leave then you give him one last warning that you are about to end the game if he doesn't leave (do not tell him that he has "x seconds to leave" and don't be too quick to give the multiple "you need to leave" warnings). Then, if he doesn't leave end the game.

I have yet to hear of a State high school association or NCAA conference not back an umpire when an ejected coach refuses to leave.  Heck, I know one league that told a coach that by refusing to timely leave after being ejected that the head coach had forfeited his right to challenge the merits of the ejection itself (and thus had to serve the mandatory 2 game suspension.)

 

[maven]

6 hours ago, PonyUmpire said:

After being given several warnings by the plate umpire

He gets ONE warning, and we should be clear and specific: "If you do not return to the dugout immediately, you will be ejected."

6 hours ago, PonyUmpire said:

Bob became argumentative, saying that the plate umpire should do his job and let him coach.  The base umpire, coming in from his position, tried to get the game moving as well.  Bob started arguing with both umpires.  After a prolonged argument, with Bob continuing to dispute the earlier ejection

3X too much argument. No way we should listen to all of that. When the team is too slow taking the field, they get one warning: "If you do not take the field immediately, this game will be forfeit." Not a lot of things warrant a forfeit, but this is one of them. 4-4-1

6 hours ago, PonyUmpire said:

Bob immediately disputed the restriction, saying that the umpire couldn't do that.  The plate umpire told him "that's enough".  Bob continued to argue, saying that the umpire needed to "do his job".  He was subsequently ejected by the plate umpire.

My concern here is with the report, not the ejection. The report makes it seem as if the infraction was coach saying, "Do your job," which is not ejectable. Rather, the infraction was a prolonged argument after warnings and restriction.

6 hours ago, PonyUmpire said:

After leaving the field, Bob remained on site and continued to talk with players and coaching staff through the dugout fence.  The base umpire informed an assistant coach to tell him to leave.  Although he stopped interacting with game participants after this point, Bob still failed to leave the game site.

This, too, is grounds for a forfeit.

Permitting too much argument is often partly the result of umpires being unwilling to let coaches have their opinion. Coach thinks we were wrong, and that's fine. When he says, "you're wrong," we can say, "OK." Don't argue: let it go. Coaches sometimes argue too much because WE get argumentative.

When he says, "you can't do that," say "OK, let's play ball." Why bother trying to convince someone who is passionately, sometimes furiously, convinced that we're wrong? He's not fully listening to us anyway: we get the game moving again, let things cool down, let everyone focus on something else — hopefully, baseball — for a while.

[PonyUmpire]

@maven, @lawump.  Good points.  I wasn't aware of the fact that he hadn't left until much later.  At that point, I didn't really see a utility in addressing it, and figured that CIF would issue an appropriate suspension (maybe that was a mistake).  As for why the argument lasted so long.. it's difficult to describe, but it's like the coach was on an entirely different wavelength, and my partner and I were kind of stunned by it.  It was like dealing with a stubborn child, who while not throwing a tantrum, refused to admit that he had done anything wrong.  He tried to frame a lot of the argument as a "discussion", where he simply wasn't content with our explanations.  "I'm not arguing, I'm just trying to understand how he can be ejected without saying anything" ... "I'm just trying to understand what's going on"  ...  "Look, you guys just got to let me coach, aight" etc., but never raised his voice.  He didn't understand that restriction meant: that I was giving him one last chance to be quiet.  He didn't even understand what restriction was, or that I had the authority to do it.  After he was ejected, he was trying to get my partner to un-eject him, insisting that he had done nothing wrong (of course my partner was having none of it).  Ugghh.. I don't know.. it felt like a Little League Minors coach had sneaked onto a high school field and we had no idea what to do.         

[ricka56]

1 hour ago, maven said:

My concern here is with the report, not the ejection. The report makes it seem as if the infraction was coach saying, "Do your job," which is not ejectable. Rather, the infraction was a prolonged argument after warnings and restriction.

I disagree that "Do your job" is not ejection-able. He is insinuating that YOU are not doing YOUR job. That falls under the "getting personal" ejection criteria. Coaches can't camouflage a personal insult that everyone implicitly understands...and get away with it.  

[ElkOil]

3 hours ago, PonyUmpire said:

@maven, @lawump.  Good points.  I wasn't aware of the fact that he hadn't left until much later.  At that point, I didn't really see a utility in addressing it, and figured that CIF would issue an appropriate suspension (maybe that was a mistake).  As for why the argument lasted so long.. it's difficult to describe, but it's like the coach was on an entirely different wavelength, and my partner and I were kind of stunned by it.  It was like dealing with a stubborn child, who while not throwing a tantrum, refused to admit that he had done anything wrong.  He tried to frame a lot of the argument as a "discussion", where he simply wasn't content with our explanations.  "I'm not arguing, I'm just trying to understand how he can be ejected without saying anything" ... "I'm just trying to understand what's going on"  ...  "Look, you guys just got to let me coach, aight" etc., but never raised his voice.  He didn't understand that restriction meant: that I was giving him one last chance to be quiet.  He didn't even understand what restriction was, or that I had the authority to do it.  After he was ejected, he was trying to get my partner to un-eject him, insisting that he had done nothing wrong (of course my partner was having none of it).  Ugghh.. I don't know.. it felt like a Little League Minors coach had sneaked onto a high school field and we had no idea what to do.         

Getting lost in his world and his argument style is a recipe for trouble. Telling him that you're moving on and playing ball is the best way forward.

[PonyUmpire]

Getting lost in his world and his argument style is a recipe for trouble. Telling him that you're moving on and playing ball is the best way forward.

Agreed. I'm not satisfied at all with how I handled it. The second ejection was 100% avoidable. The whole thing was just bleh

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[maven]

16 minutes ago, PonyUmpire said:

Agreed. I'm not satisfied at all with how I handled it. The second ejection was 100% avoidable. The whole thing was just bleh

I'm thinking that it wasn't. If "Bob" is the baseball guru you suggest, he probably didn't want to hang around for the rest of that game, once his pitcher had been run. He probably couldn't believe how much energy it took to get you to run him!

(The fact that undercuts that thought, of course, is that he wouldn't leave.)

[PonyUmpire]

I'm thinking that it wasn't. If "Bob" is the baseball guru you suggest, he probably didn't want to hang around for the rest of that game, once his pitcher had been run. He probably couldn't believe how much energy it took to get you to run him!

(The fact that undercuts that thought, of course, is that he wouldn't leave.)

He wasn't trying to get run at all, and sincerely thought that neither him nor his player should have been run. He just didn't have a clue.

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[MadMax]

@PonyUmpire, or a Moderator, could you please edit the title to something – anything – with actual letters and words? "Total Clusterflubber" or "Just Won't Leave"... While just an underline is understood to represent an emptiness (or a dirty word), lets please not use this in titles, because this will wreck our already tenuous search engine here, and will set a precedent to new visitors that it is acceptable.

Thank you.

A "gesture of disagreement", you say? Would this be of the bird variety? ... And this is a High School game? Huh. He's done right there. Disagreement in vocal form, such as "Funk!" or "Funk that!" I've let slide. We already know adding "You" to an expletive like that is over the line, so too, that gesture, if it was indeed the middle-finger, already speaks enough.

[stkjock]

The title line is a quasi emoji. " -_____- ".  It's an annoyed face.  Albeit a bit too long with the underline. 

[PonyUmpire]

@PonyUmpire, or a Moderator, could you please edit the title to something – anything – with actual letters and words? "Total Clusterflubber" or "Just Won't Leave"... While just an underline is understood to represent an emptiness (or a dirty word), lets please not use this in titles, because this will wreck our already tenuous search engine here, and will set a precedent to new visitors that it is acceptable.

Thank you.

A "gesture of disagreement", you say? Would this be of the bird variety? ... And this is a High School game? Huh. He's done right there. Disagreement in vocal form, such as "Funk!" or "Funk that!" I've let slide. We already know adding "You" to an expletive like that is over the line, so too, that gesture, if it was indeed the middle-finger, already speaks enough.

Arms slightly raised from his side, palms turned up. The classic "are you kidding me" gesture.

I actually tried to change the title, but couldn't figure out how to do it.

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[Aging_Arbiter]

19 hours ago, MadMax said:

"Funk!" or "Funk that!"

What does George Clinton have to do with this?