Cougar Attack!!!!!!

[jkumpire]

Had some fun tonight.

Last night I had 3 hour 7 inning college game, 14-2. It was uglier than, well, words cannot describe it.

So today, ugh, a HS game. V is ofer the season, H is not much better.

V gets 2 in the top of the 1st. Stays 2-0 until bottom of 3 when Home team gets a nice quick 12 spot. V's F1 hit 3 batters in a row, and 4 out of 5, add three errors and a walk, and voila..

V is scoreless in 4th, H puts up 6 spot. Top 5, V down 18-2 leave the magic run on 2B to end the game. Just bad baseball, and it only took 1:45! Oh well it happens.

Partner and I talk in the lot, and he's a hour away from home. "Let's grab some food, where do you want to go?" I ask my partner. Mickey D's and Wendy's are next to each other in town, he chooses Wendy's. I'm out of my gear and uniform.

We go in the place, he goes to the men's room, and I see two players from the V's there ordering to go. Say a couple of nice things to them, one kid says "yeah, bad night for us but I went 3-3." I tell them keep their heads up, and then here comes Mommy. she's in her mid 30's to early 40's. petite, somewhat attractive, until she opens her mouth.

Meow, Meow, Meow, claws out ready to attack. She interrupts me in mid-sentence.

"My son is a great pitcher, that's the worst he's done all year, and you were the reason why."

Silence from the players and me. the poor F1 starts melting into the floor.

"I know the game real well, my son plays legion ball, and you gave him high strikes only never any low ones. You didn't set up over the catcher's head you were two feet inside, you were too big and fat to get down, everyone around me said how bad you were. You're the worst umpire I've seen ever." It just keeps going on and on. I had her son's legion team three times last summer, he never saw the field in any game I had with them.

Finally she finds the fuse and lights it. "You don't know anything about how to umpire, I've watched my son since little league." :hopmad:

I finally said something as I ducked her "rhetorical claws" again, "i'll take my 2,000 baseball games experience over your instruction on how to umpire, ma'am. Let's stop this."

My partner comes out to order and hears all of this. Finally she say something about me personally as she starts to leave.

I couldn't help it, "the only thing you have is a big mouth ma'am." she then leaves. And I start laughing.

Everyone in the place is watching her going out the door shaking their heads. Partner and I had a good laugh all through dinner. As the old saying goes, "When you have someone making a fool of themselves, just stay out of the way and let them."

And what she doesn't know is that I'm working the plate for them two weeks from today... :yippie:

I'll have a very nice thank you note ready to give her for all her constructive criticism, though I'm not going out of my way to give it to her!

It was a fun time in Wendy's tonight. My partner says he will be there to watch every minute of the next game.

[yawetag]

This is why I don't eat in a restaurant where players are inside. If I'm already seated and they enter, I don't say a word to them.

[bpate]

V's F1 hit 3 batters in a row, and 4 out of 5, add three errors and a walk, and voila..

Guess you should have called the plunks strikes too huh?

[jkumpire]

This is why I don't eat in a restaurant where players are inside. If I'm already seated and they enter, I don't say a word to them.

I used to think that way, but this is HS Baseball. And in this case the kids were right in front of me. It's hard for me to say that a positive word to a 17 or 18 year old kid who just got mercied is a bad thing. I just can't do it anymore away from the park.

Ultimately, it didn't matter, I could have stood by the door to leave and she was going to say something anyway.

[mstaylor]

The players seemed to taking a positive note out of the game, it was Mama bear that was having the problem.

[Mr Umpire]

I don't see what you did as wrong or anything. I personally don't say anything but that is just me. All I would add is to make sure you pick your spots of doing this well. It sounds like you did in this case. Just the mother didn't know any better.

[jkumpire]

Just an update....

My partner that day just happened to work the same two teams the next day. Somehow the event of the previous day came up, and the school's AD pointed out the "gal" as he put it "before I had a chance to tell him what kid it was."

LOL