Coach Karen(s) . . . Did not dump (twice), critique away.

[The Man in Blue]

This past weekend I worked a PBR event at 15u and 17u levels (they say NFHS with OBR pitching, but they only explicitly ban the feint to third and do want balks kept live).  I had two situations that I was asked post-game about not ejecting.  I believe we don't show the shower often enough, but I didn't think either of these arose to me needing to eject.   What say you?

First . . . 

Pitcher starts having some issues in the third inning, but gets out of it and is frustrated.  To start the 4th inning, he gets to a 1-1 count, then pulls a Nestor Cortez, circling the leg and yo-yo-ing it up and down.  It catches me a little off-guard, so I let it slide and tell the first baseman, "He can't do that."  First baseman says, "Yeah, he knows that." 

2-1 count.  He does it again, I point and yell, "That's a balk!"  (Semantics, yes.)  The batter lines it to F8.  I reaffirm the call and the offensive HC and pitcher start screaming "What did I/he do?"  Instead of explaining it twice, I try to get the pitcher and the coach together on the foul line.  I get them close, and start to explain.  I explain what I saw and before I can even get to the explanation of my rule application, the HC walks toward the mound and starts yelling at the backstop "I need the tournament director!  I need the tournament director!  That's not the rule!"  The guy is a very demonstrative and loud coach, that is just who he is (I noticed it even when he talks to his players). 

My PU, a first year guy, comes out and he starts to bark at the coach, but I head him off.  "Just take him to the back stop and get the TD or UIC, because he isn't going to listen to me.  I'll talk to the pitcher."  Meanwhile, Coach Karen is carrying on and being demonstrative, but not directing anything at us.  Not personal, not profane, possibly prolonged?  He wasn't really arguing with me, he just didn't want to listen to me.  I was fine with that, I'm not going to get bent out of shape because he wants somebody else to explain it to him.  I'm not going to waste my energy or get upset over it.  Coach Karen wants my manager, Coach Karen is going to get my manager.

Meanwhile, I am explaining it to the pitcher who is saying "I never stopped" that being in continual motion and delivering in a continuous motion are not the same.  He doesn't like it, but he isn't arguing.  The HC is waiting for the UIC, so he starts to walk back over to us.  The HC injects himself with "But Nestor Cortez is a BIG LEAGUER and HE does it!" 

I calmly say, "Let me stop you right there . . . " and then, in effort to inject some levity (and keep myself calm), "Can I say a bad word in front of the kid?" 

The coach is take aback a little (and diffused some), "Not in front of the kid, no."

"That's OK, I will say it this way then: Nestor Cortex is an idiot.  He makes more money than you or I, but that doesn't make him right.  We are playing baseball, he is a paid entertainer."

The UIC arrives at that moment and I excuse myself to go give him the rundown.  He says, OK.  "Sounds like the right call to me, he needs to deliver in a continuous motion and up-down-and-all-around is not continuous.  Let's get the game going, and I will talk to the coach."

We work on getting things reset, and the UIC pulls the coach over towards the 3rd base coaching box and his dugout.  The UIC tells him, "I am going to stand here and talk to you as long as we need to, but the game is going to go on.  I won't get in your way, but I want to make sure you feel you are heard and then accept the ruling.  You don't have to like it or agree, but it was right and we are keeping this moving."

We played on without much more concern.  The UIC stood down there by the coaches' box for about 15 minutes, through the inning.

POST-MORTUM:  The UIC asked me about ejecting him.  I said I didn't feel he was there.  He was loud and possibly over-demonstrative, but not in a defiant way.  That was just his personality and his culture.  He was the same way when talking to his players, positively and negatively.  He wasn't personal, he wasn't profane.  He didn't argue with me, he just didn't like it and/or didn't understand it.  I was rather pleased with the outcome and joked with the UIC that I like this surrogate/therapy umpire concept.  Coach, you can go yell at this guy all you want, we are playing on!

POST-MORTUM with partner: As I said, my partner was a first year guy.  We talked about his reaction to escalation versus my efforts to de-escalate.  This coach was an animated person, we knew that from the beginning.  He was perceived as "escalated" from the get go, but he really wasn't.  That is cultural, and I would encourage umpires to take culture into consideration when calling games.  You can't change it, but not understanding it can make things much worse.

 

 

What say you on Count #1?

[The Man in Blue]

Second . . . 

Entirely different coach.  30+ year veteran, very organized and meticulous with his players (he had ball shaggers assigned on his dug-out line up card!).  Very game focused, but also likes to slide in those veteran coach tricks and digs.

I had him on day one.  At the beginning of the game, I got him and his team about all the players wandering around outside the dugout, swinging bats, etc. and huddling his team up while the other team was warming up.  On his way down to third base, he stops and says, "You need to lighten up on this stuff."  I asked which part.  He said, "We need to talk to our guys."  I explain it is a safety concern and the dugouts here are big enough they can talk in the dugout.  I explain that this has been a POE for a while now.  He accepts the explanation and we move on.

During the game, he barked a little about my zone, but nothing egregious, other than he called me "ref" at one point in one of his dugout grumblings.  I wanted to stop him between innings and tell him "I'm an umpire, not a ref" just so he knew I was hearing him.  I chose not to.

The next day, I have a plate for them again.  The field we are coming on is running ahead, so about 45 minutes before game time I track down the coaches and ask about an early start.  Had a really great conversation with this coach, and he said "I like the way you handle the game.  I may not agree with your calls, but you were very professional about all of it."  To me, that is about the ultimate compliment I strive for.

In the top of the first inning, he is up 2-0 already.  With two outs, his batter is swinging as R2 is on the move.  As the batter comes around on the follow through, I hear a solid and definitive contact, see the bat rebound, the ball sails to left field, and the catcher and batter both react.  I immediately call "TIME!" and signal the batter out.

He comes out, hot.  I explain, but I do say the "ball hit the bat," at which point the batter corrects me and says, "No, I got his arm."  OK by me, thank you.  However, the coach is not having it.  He is maintaining the batter was just completing his swing and there was no intent.  I explain it doesn't matter, it is what it is.  I explain the batter can stand still, but is responsible for his follow through.

Long story short, it gets kind of ugly because he just isn't wanting to hear it (he can complete his swing, he was in the box, all the usual . . . I've been coaching 35 years, I'm in the hall of fame, never seen this, etc.).  He finally asks for the UIC to explain the rule to me.  OK, now you just took me out of it.  The UIC is called (different UIC that day).

The UIC arrives, and I give him my rundown, my partner confirms my description.  He calls the coach over . . . and the coach is still going wrong.  Not loud, not rude, not personal, not profane, just wrong.  At this point, I have nothing to say or add, so I do not say another word.  Since the coach asked for a rule interpretation, I am not making a case.  The coach says a number of times, "I don't question judgement calls, but that is a misapplication of the rule."  Somehow, the coach convinces (or confuses) the UIC that the contact happened in front of the batter and the catcher came into it.  The coach is carrying on about teaching catchers to just tackle bats (and I do agree with him on that point), and the UIC says we are changing the call.  I disagree, but it is out of my hands now.  We break, I turn to the plate and signal "safe" and "the run scores."

The UIC walks over to inform the other team's coach . . . because he is upset now.  I again follow, but add nothing.  In his conversation with the other coach, the other coach gets him to realize it happened on the follow though, and the UIC rubs his temples.  OK, we are "fixing it back."  He goes back to veteran coach and explains the call was right, the explanation was faulty, and he misunderstood.

Veteran coach is hot.  Again, not personal or profane, but prolonged.  He does not cross a line with me, as I see it as him being mad at the situation.  He starts name-dropping other UICs "who would not have made that call" and credential dropping (which ticks off the UIC).  The UIC leaves and the coach is still going on.  I walk back to the dugout with him and explain to him I agree with his reading of the rule that it encourages catchers to "tackle bats," but that is the rule and coaches like him are the ones who can get that changed.  He tells me he has lost a lot of respect for me (OK, maybe personal, but the feeling was mutual) and how that was handled.  I explain to him that I didn't do it, he took me out of the picture when he brought the UIC in, and I didn't like the optics on it either.

We play on.  A few batters into the next 1/2 inning and a call a ball (high) on a tall batter.  He chirps from the dugout "6 foot 3 and that was high?  Come on!"  He added something else (I don't recall).  My water jug was on his side, so on the next pitch (foul ball) I take a moment to go get a drink.  He is saying something (I don't recall what) and I subtly give him the stop sign as I walk over.  As I am getting a drink I tell him, "You stood there and told my UIC you won't argue judgement calls.  Not another word about the strike zone."  He starts to say something and I stop him, "NOT another word."  I don't like that ultimatum, but it was calm, quiet, and just between he and I.

The rest of the game goes off without a hitch or a sound out of him.

POST MORTUM -- I asked the UIC what I could have communicated better, and I missed two little words (that I later used): follow through.  He said, "I don't know why I wasn't getting it, but had you said that it would have been concrete."  

On the non-ejection . . . At one point I thought he was trying to get tossed to fire up his players (which makes no sense when you are up 2-0 in the top of the first inning).  The reason I kept him in the game was that I really liked and admired the way he handled his players.  I felt the game was better off keeping him in (as long as he wanted to stay).  I was a little disappointed with the example he set, especially since he was saying one thing and doing another, but he was great with the way he talked to his players and handled them.  Plus, my call was confirmed, so he wasn't really arguing with me any longer.  He was just mad that he was wrong and got caught trying to get away with one.

 

 

Sorry, long.  But what say you on Count #2?

[834k3r]

Count 1:  I got nothing. I wouldn't have gone with the "can I say a bad word" for levity (I've used sarcasm for levity with a coach before and it did not go well), but we're all different and none of us U-E denizens were there but you.

Count 2:  Had the conversation been with you the whole time (rather than the UIC) I would have said it crossed into "Prolonged" territory of the 7 Ps. That said, he quieted down when you warned him about the strike zone, so mission accomplished. It was an ugly scenario and he was frustrated at the call and even more so at reversal, so I'd have given him a bit more leash as well.

I try to keep in my mind that when coaches are nice and gracious and friendly, all they want is for a call to go their way when the time comes. It's possible probable that this coach "respected" you only as long as you were making calls he liked--which means it was never earnest in the first place.

[BigBlue4u]

2 hours ago, The Man in Blue said:

Pitcher starts having some issues in the third inning, but gets out of it and is frustrated.  To start the 4th inning, he gets to a 1-1 count, then pulls a Nestor Cortez, circling the leg and yo-yo-ing it up and down.  It catches me a little off-guard, so I let it slide and tell the first baseman, "He can't do that."  First baseman says, "Yeah, he knows that." 

I'll try to keep my comments short.  First, if the pitcher balked and you didn't call it, why shouldn't he expect you not to call it when he does it again?  If you are the PU and missed it and you know you missed it, send the catcher out to tell the pitcher if he does it again, it's a balk.  If you are the base umpire, tell the closest infielder to tell him it's a balk the next time. Under the circumstances, you have to give the pitcher a chance to fix it himself. Also, what's a coaching going to say when he comes out to complain and you tell him, "Coach, what do you want me to do?" I sent the catcher/infielder out to tell him not to do it."

 

2 hours ago, The Man in Blue said:

Long story short, it gets kind of ugly because he just isn't wanting to hear it (he can complete his swing, he was in the box, all the usual . . . I've been coaching 35 years, I'm in the hall of fame, never seen this, etc.). 

The fastest way to get a coach back to the dugout is to say something like, "Coach this is the rule, (state rule) If you think I am wrong, play the game under protest.  If not, we're playing ball.  What do you want to do?"  If he won't make a decision, tell him, "Coach, "We're done.  If you continue, you'll be ejected for delaying the game." I've always said, use an ejection as a last resort.  But, sometimes, because of a coach's demeanor, etc., it's best to offer a short leash....a very short leash.

[grayhawk]

The one and only time I have worked a game where the coach could ask to escalate to a TD (without an official protest) was in Cooperstown, and I'm glad that was the only time. What a colossal waste of time all that was when the kids could've just been playing.

That said, I only call the Mammoth balks (even elephants are still too small) in the summer, and this one doesn't even leave footprints in soft sand for me. YMMV.

[SH0102]

7 hours ago, The Man in Blue said:

My water jug was on his side, so on the next pitch (foul ball) I take a moment to go get a drink.

You got a drink in the middle of an at bat?  By the dugout of the coach who is upset with you?

To an outsider (fan in stands or on video), that would look like you’re baiting him.

[noumpere]

TL;DR.

 

But, "writing that much" and "should have dumped" are reasonably correlated.

[The Man in Blue]

On 7/16/2024 at 3:12 PM, 834k3r said:

Count 2:  Had the conversation been with you the whole time (rather than the UIC) I would have said it crossed into "Prolonged" territory of the 7 Ps. That said, he quieted down when you warned him about the strike zone, so mission accomplished. It was an ugly scenario and he was frustrated at the call and even more so at reversal, so I'd have given him a bit more leash as well.

I try to keep in my mind that when coaches are nice and gracious and friendly, all they want is for a call to go their way when the time comes. It's possible probable that this coach "respected" you only as long as you were making calls he liked--which means it was never earnest in the first place.

 

I made that point to him . . . "You took me out of the conversation, so what do you want me to do now?"

Snake in the grass . . . and he wasn't leading off first base.

[The Man in Blue]

On 7/16/2024 at 3:59 PM, BigBlue4u said:

I'll try to keep my comments short. 

Where is the fun in that?  😉

On 7/16/2024 at 3:59 PM, BigBlue4u said:

First, if the pitcher balked and you didn't call it, why shouldn't he expect you not to call it when he does it again?

Edited for brevity . . . I hate that argument.  Just because you get away with it once, or we don't call that pitch once, or nobody else called it all year . . . no, just no.

I did advise the first baseman.  He chose not to say anything to the pitcher.  But no, we don't need to send subtle warnings (some would even call that coaching).  We do it as a courtesy.  (Yes, I do agree with you it can be an effective courtesy.)

 

  

[The Man in Blue]

On 7/16/2024 at 7:53 PM, grayhawk said:

The one and only time I have worked a game where the coach could ask to escalate to a TD (without an official protest) was in Cooperstown, and I'm glad that was the only time. What a colossal waste of time all that was when the kids could've just been playing.

That said, I only call the Mammoth balks (even elephants are still too small) in the summer, and this one doesn't even leave footprints in soft sand for me. YMMV.

This tournament takes care if it right then and there.  They have several tournament/site people on hand and a UIC at all times.  They are big on taking care of it quickly -- the first one worked out, the second . . . not so much.  (They did put the time back on the clock since it took them a little longer to respond.)  

I agree with you: let's play.  We didn't come to stand around and watch court proceedings.

What balks are mammoths?  What do you do when you don't call it, but the situation makes the next one a mammoth?  Balks are like ejections, we don't call them enough.  

[The Man in Blue]

On 7/16/2024 at 8:48 PM, SH0102 said:

You got a drink in the middle of an at bat?  By the dugout of the coach who is upset with you?

To an outsider (fan in stands or on video), that would look like you’re baiting him.

You've got me trying to recall the sequence here . . . I've slept a night or two . . . It may have been between innings, but I was thinking it was while we were waiting on the outfielder to run it down and get it back in.  I may be misremembering that.  

I guess you could view it that way.  I viewed it no differently than when we take out our line up card and have a different conversation.  It was a way to have the conversation quietly and away from the fans.  I didn't go over to ask him anything.  I went in response and to keep things calm . . . calmer . . .  . . . and viewed it as a better option than barking "STOP!" under the circumstances.

[grayhawk]

2 hours ago, The Man in Blue said:

What balks are mammoths?  What do you do when you don't call it, but the situation makes the next one a mammoth?  Balks are like ejections, we don't call them enough.  

Dropping the ball while engaged with the rubber, feinting to 1st, blowing through a stop, major knee pops, stepping home and throwing to first (the obvious ones). In the off-season, I don't bother with the technical balks that nobody but us umpires know about and that nobody would ever say anything about.

[BigBlue4u]

19 hours ago, The Man in Blue said:

Where is the fun in that?  😉

TMIB:

You are a pretty funny guy! 🙂 

[The Man in Blue]

On 7/19/2024 at 12:59 AM, grayhawk said:

Dropping the ball while engaged with the rubber, feinting to 1st, blowing through a stop, major knee pops, stepping home and throwing to first (the obvious ones). In the off-season, I don't bother with the technical balks that nobody but us umpires know about and that nobody would ever say anything about.

In the off-season, I don’t call any.  😉

[HumblePie]

Let me just say ... I don't call Little League, and I would not take part in a tournament where a coach can stop the game and call for the TD or the UIC without a protest and without a protest fee being placed on the table.

You think you know the rules better than the officials?  Put your money where your mouth is.  If you're proven correct, you get it back.

I've always thought the protest fee should go to the umpire if the protest is not upheld, and if the umpire was proven wrong, he should give up his game fee.

Your recount of these situations were so long I almost lost interest in the middle. I'm not saying that to take a shot at you.  I'm saying ... that indicates to me that you probably use far too many words when talking to coaches and players too.

I'll say this as well... I'd never put my personal cooler in the dugout where I could possibly create a stir with a coach.  There is always a better option.  No unnecessary words, no unnecessary eye contact, no unnecessary rabbit ears.  I hate it when my partner gets too chatty, and I have been accused of the same early on in my career.  It almost always dulls your concentration.

I vehemently disagree with you and vociferously agree with BigBlue for saying that if you miss a balk, try to let the pitcher know subtly ... you absolutely set the precedent that you're not gonna call it otherwise.

The argument I hate the most is, "I've been coaching for 35 years ... and ..."

It's arguing for authority.  If I don't recognize your authority, and I don't believe in your authority, it's no different than a Christian arguing with a Muslim, and one is using the Bible and the other is using the Koran.  It's sophomoric on both parties' parts to do so.  Just tell the coach you don't want to hear his resume', the rule is this, and let's play ball.  There are firm, yet gentle ways to say that.