something i haven't seen since umpiring hot stove...

[mscott59]

... to help make some $$ during my hs/college summers. wife and i went out last night for dinner to celebrate the anniversary, and when we got home she had some work stuff to get done so i flipped on the tv and wanted to see if the tribe had managed to score at least a run at tampa bay. indians were up 3-1 in the 9th (had missed cody anderson's 6 1/3 perfect innings, and his 7 innings of 1 run ball; a week ago sunday my dad and i saw him pitch very well in his major league debut). anyway, kipnis gets a single and lindor a double so w/1 out you've got guys at 2nd and 3rd. the rays set up to intentionally walk brantley to load the bases, but the pitcher (don't know who) for tampa sails the first pitch a good 15-20 feet over the catcher's head, who'd moved outside the catcher's box to receive ball 1. kipnis scores, it opens the door for 4 9th inning runs. 7-1 win.

made me laugh, because when it happened back in the summer of '76 to me as an ump, same scenario (runners on 2nd and 3rd) and the fielding team's coach says walk the batter. at the time, you couldn't just send the batter to first (in some leagues you can now), so the pitcher starts lobbing balls outside the plate. on ball 3 he airmails it over the catcher's head, the runner on 3rd starts racing for home only to see the ball ricochet off the backstop right back to the catcher, who throws the ball to 3rd to not only nail that runner, but also tag out the guy who was on 2nd who just put his head down for 3rd. intentional walk turns into double play. lol. the hitting team's manager comes out to mildly protest (he was also one of our big hs basketball boosters who knew me from the team; he was much more pissed at his two players than me), but two parents could not stop yelling about how time was supposed to stop somehow. i actually handed one of them my rulebook (always a good idea to have during a game) and told them to look up the rule on intentional walk

well, the count is 3-0 now on the batter, and the fielding team's coach decides to go ahead and pitch to the kid in a tie game first pitch he triples down the right field line, and the next pitch he comes home on a grounder to short. bizarre. oh yeah, after the game i pick up my $10 for calling the game from the home team coach, and the two parents are waiting right behind him. they give me my rulebook back, tell me i was right about the walk thing, but follow me halfway to my car telling me how i have no idea what i'm doing on balls and strikes. little league parents.... good times. ha

[canefan]

LOL!! I feel your pain. I served on the Board of Directors for our Youth Basball and did some umpiring as well. I bought the Wendelstedt School Umpiring binder, a three ring binder of all the rules, rulings and interpretations. Thing is about a foot thick. Anytime I had a parent push it to the limit I took them up to the league office, pulled down the binder and would just start thumbing through like I knew exactly where it was that I had to show him. Usually never made it to the page. That damn book intimidated the shit out of Little League parents.

[AlaCowboy]

I always told parents or players I never made a wrong call. I called it exactly how I saw it. Maybe their angle was bad. "Did you see _____ _____ from where you sat?" Well, they didn't (but I probably didn't either).

[canefan]

We had a parent go completely appshit one night. She was a late 40's 100% redneck old gal who was absolutely convinced that the other teams pitcher, thie was on a 15 year old Babe Ruth league team, had intentionally drilled her son the the side. Her son was on the worst team in the league and he was, not ever arguabley, the worst player on that team. The 15ths guy on a 15 guy roster. We required every player had to get at least one at bat and play two innings in the field for every game and he was a 2/1 type of a guy. I am not sure he ever had a hit. Anyway, the pitcher was a kid who had a great curveball and went on the next year to play and pitch for the high school team. He slipped a bit with his delivery and plunked this did in the hip with probably a 70 mph curveball and momma went wild. She actually climbed up the wire backstop so that her feet were over my head, and I'm 6'5" tall. Took three of us to pull her off the backstop and eventually had another parent, who was a Florida Highway Patrol officer and was in uniform at the game, help us to eject her from the park. I think that is my favorite wild parent ever. Ranks right up there with the mom who was convinced the coach wouldn't let her son play or bat more than the minimum because he was left handed. Ah, you got to love Little League parents.

[daleko]

11& U team we had a kid with Turrets. A skinny little kid who we slotted as a pitcher. If he reached 45mph, it was on a good day. It was a neighborhood team that only lasted 1 yr and the dad was a friend. The kid wanted to play and no one would take him, so we did. Discussed w the other coach and the umps about the Turrets and everybody agreed that life would go on if everyone ignored his twitches, jerks and curses. The other team was batting off their front foot for the two innings he pitched, mostly missing. They just couldn't wait. One dad, then another goes berserk and claims the kid is throwing grease balls and had Vaseline hidden in his uni. They get the league director over and convince him to have the umps, who just shrugged, check him out. Meanwhile the kid is stressed out and is twitching and cursing on the mound. Kind of comical if you weren't involved. We rotated kids in every two innings who threw faster and faster. We won the game and after the game it was ice cream for all. Gave the kid the game ball which everyone signed. He still has it. Today, he is a neurosurgeon. Uh no, just kidding.

[canefan]

I'm assuming you mean Tourettes. I remember Jim Eisenrich who played for Minnesotta and KC several years ago. Really good player who was able to control his Tourettes with medication well enough to play several years in the majors. The medication did affect him though and I think he would have been a much bigger star if he hadn't had it. We had a little guy who played with us on our 11-12 year old team, no Tourettes, but he threw mid 30's to mid 40's which, at that age, is quite a bit less than most of the pitchers. But his kid could flat out control his placement and also had a great little spin for a classic 12 to 6 curve ball. We played in an AAU tournament with 12 & 13 year olds on a 90 foot diamond. I started this leftie who was touching 70 mph but not great command. We played a team from Atlanta and he walked the first kid on four pitches. The second batter hit the ball about 350 feet, well over the centerfield wall on this field. He then threw four wide to the #3 hitter and the #4 guy hit his first pitch even further than the other guy. Kid begged out. Didn't want anything to do with these big guys.(I swear they were all as big as 18 year olds) I got a wild idea and brought in Kevin, our little right handed soft thrower, and he absolutely hog tied these guys. I think they got two hits off him the rest of the game and nothing really well hit. We ended up losing 4 to 2 but the coach of the other team couldn't say enough to Kevin about how he shut his guys down, telling him nobody had held them under ten runs all year. Velocity isn't everything. <g>

My other best Little League story was the night before regular season when I was in the equipment room for uniform exchange. I had a new coach show up to swap out some pants. He handed me a youth XL telling me he needed an adult small and also handed me an adult small telling me he needed a youth XL. I looked at him for a full thirty seconds trying to figure out if this was some sort of joke. Then I took the YXL out of his left hand with my left and the AS out of his right hand with my right (crossing my arms doing so). I then handed them back to him in the other arms, saying here is your AS and your YXL. Took him about another thirty seconds looking at them in his hands before it finally dawned on him what he had done. Finally he smiled and laughed and we both got a good chuckle out of it. Moral of the story, sometimes guys get so focused on details that they lose sight of the big picture.