Babe Ruth 16-18 yr old team that just didn't care

[udbrky]

Had such an annoying game tonight. This team just didn't gaf. Not one single ***** to give could be found.

1st inning, fly ball to CF, CF doesn't catch it because he's busy putting his phone back in his pocket.

2B has his glove tucked under his arm and is loading up on seeds for 2 pitches. Tells his coach he's ready to field.

They couldn't catch a fly ball to save their life.

One kid didn't like a called 3rd call and threw his helmet and bat. PU warned and talked to coach. Kid took a walk and later was seen with his bag leaving. Other players called him a quitter loudly the rest of the game.

Coach makes a pitching change and the catcher tells him 2x that he's retarded.

Other team can't seal the 10RR and we go 7 full with an 8 run game.

T7, bad attitude team throws ball around the horn and SS throws it to CF - not an overthrow, purposely threw it right to him. I started yelling at them not to ever do that again.

2 batters later, 1B/2B are complaining that the game is going forever. I said "don't you complain about it when you guys pulled that crap throwing it to CF" in a nicer way, but still stern. 

I think I would've run the next guy that tried it.

Pitcher at the end was doing a good job, but clearly frustrated, ball hit to SS side up middle, he throws his glove at it, misses. PU calls time after the play and comes out, I knew immediately what he was asking and said it didn't hit it, so OK. Players were asking us to bang the game.

AC and player had a loud/long argument over a hit/error (easy GB to P, throws to 1B who just drops the ball, clear E3).

I felt bad for the kids who weren't in the "cool kid clique", as they looked dejected and clearly weren't having the fun with it that these others were. 

 

I was really rooting for the 10 runner in this one. FFS, the team was actively talking about just getting out if they were down 10. I just was so tired of seeing them display so openly that they just didn't care. I bit my tongue with the kid to his coach, because that's not my problem. They didn't direct anything towards me, so I obviously was staying Ignore stage. 

I get it, it's Babe Ruth season, they're 2-9, and having a tough season. But this display was terrible. I just needed to vent. It's just really hard to do a game where the players don't want to be there.

 

Game before, had 3 HR, including the longest ball I think I've ever seen a HS age player hit. It went a good 20 yards over the fence to straight away CF. 

[LittleBlue]

Sounds like two games I did today. A 15u DH and not a single care in the world. It was a rec league with no playoffs so the games are basically meaningless. The attitude of the players reflect that. For us working the games though it's brutal. Final score of game one was 18-15 and game two was 22-12. Terrible baseball (if you can call it that).

[udbrky]

Had the losing team for the 3rd game in a 3-game set today, 2 plates. 3rd game is getting near time limit, but I think it's still like 15 mins, B6, last night's team is up 11-10, HT. VT coach says "we're 2 mins from time limit, they're up, let's just call it."
 

Team that didn't want to play last night is begging to play today. We didn't continue. I felt no remorse.

[udbrky]

They also were punting the ball in IF warmups. I'd never seen it until then, and another team's 1B was doing it between innings. Looks awful. Its little things that some players do, that you look at and say "there's a reason you won't even get looked at to play higher ball".

[umpire_scott]

I used to work for an organization that did a club ball league.  Basically all the club teams in the area would give him their availability and he would schedule the league with weekday double-headers.  There were very few weekend games because the teams would be playing tournaments.  So they scheduled through arbiter and I saw that I had a 17U DH.  I thought this should be some pretty good ball.  I get to the game and it was the worst baseball I've ever seen.  Pitcher for one team could barely get the ball to home plate. One team was yelling at each other the whole game.  It took 2+ hours to play 3 innings.  Come to find out the organization had picked up a local rec league to scheduled umpires for.  I politely told the assigner, to not ever give me that league again.  

[jtcoldshot]

For our town league they would post all of the games for pretty much the entire season up on a shared google spread sheet, and you would basically just look to see what was open and let the assigner know what games you would like to work.  This has worked out pretty well the last couple years.  But there was one team that always seemed to be "open" for plate and bases pretty much every week.  It didn't seem to take too long to figure out why, was just bad baseball. Of the 5 or 6 games I did for this team I think I voluntarily signed up for one, the others I was asked by the assigner kind of last minute since no one really wanted it. The games seemed so long, I can't think of 1 game that made it all 6 innings.  I think it was half the kids cared and the other half really didn't.  I did the bases one game in particular where the 1st inning top and bottom lasted 1 hour (game time 1:50). 

I find it hard to stay focused during those long brutal innings, especially when you see the players not really give a crap.  I find myself having to remind myself to focus, focus, focus.  I don't remember kicking any calls during these games but would find myself drifting off at times just wondering when someone is going to make an out.  And asking myself why I keep working these games.  But part of me kind of enjoys it in a weird way, because I tell myself, "you know what, these parents have to sit through this crap, some of these players do care, and I'm getting paid to basically watch a baseball game."  And with that I find the opposite happens sometimes when you are working a little higher level ball, or have two really good teams and just seemed to get locked into the game and feel like you are seeing everything.

[udbrky]

I really like to work on things in those kinds of games. I use them to test some mechanics.

 

But yeah, when no one GAF, it's hard to do so yourself.