Karma

[MarsOmega]

This is a long story so hang in there. I don't know why this is all bolded but I can't undo the bold button for some reason.

 

Last year I worked for both my local association and my town's small little league. The local league never had to contract with the association because they had their own umpires. The year I worked there were 4 of us including me and my father.  My association typically paid around 80$ for 10u and 12u. The local league paid 40$ a game. I played for the little league so I felt that working for them was a way of giving back to my community. Boy did I learn my lesson. 

Around 1 week before the season was set to end, I was given a 12u LL Majors game. My father also umpires and he worked the field while I worked plate. For some reason, I was notified that we were to enforce a new penalty for runners leaving early. The league decided that umpires were to call runners out for leaving early after a warning instead of sending them back. Apparently, the coaches were not notified of this. 

 

I don’t remember what inning this was in. R1, 2 outs. VT has been previously warned that their runner left early. Before the pitch reaches the plate, R1 takes off. After the pitch, my partner told me that the runner left early. I called him out for leaving early and said that the team already got a warning for leaving early. All hell breaks loose so I move into the infield where my partner is. VT assistant coach comes towards me from the 1st base coaching box. He wants to know what happened so I explain that because a warning was already given his player was called out for leaving early. Mind you that during the arguing I am backing up trying to disengage from the conflict. He actually chased me from the pitcher's mound to 3rd base. He kept arguing so I said that if there was anything else, he could talk to the head coach and have him come talk to me. He then yells “Well I just want a f*****g explanation!” So I toss him. The head coach comes running onto the field and states that I can’t do that. My father is trying to rodeo clown and tells him that he yelled the f-word at a Little League game. He says “You can’t do that. You do anything like that again and I will have you removed.” I continue to back up but by now every coach is on the field.  Me and my partner (dad) decide that things are out of control and we suspend the game and leave. When I called the league president who is also the umpire coordinator to explain what happened, he fired me for causing too much trouble. I was furious but I thought that if they were not going to back up their umpires from abuse from coaches I didn’t want to work for them anyway. My father quit in solidarity. 

 

Anyway, I got over it and have been working with my association this year. A couple of days ago, I got a notification through our app that I have 2 new game assignments pending. It's a doubleheader 12u Little League game for the local league that fired me each paying 80$ a pop. I almost fell off the couch from laughing so hard. Turns out that when me and my father left, they lost all their umpires and had to contract with my association which subsequently meant that they had to pay double what they were paying before just to have me come back and umpire for them. Now with supervisors that are supportive and back their umpires even when we make mistakes. I hope the league president is there so I can pretend not to know anyone and wow everyone with my professionalism. This made my month and I am glad to take their 160$ for 4 hours worth of work.

[ArchAngel72]

I love all these "local league rules"

I simply ask them if they got permission from the district to make that change as local leagues cannot make local rules (with few in book exceptions) without running it all the way to the regional office minimum.   If the district DA does not know about it Sorry we play by the book as its written. You got a problem with that call another patched umpire. But I will warn them they will probably get the same thing.