Tension on the diamond

E's baseball team played David Douglas #2 on Friday night. The storyline of the game, unfortunately, was not the kids. It was the umps and the coaches.

There were two umps. The home plate ump was an older guy, 50's I would say. The young infield ump was an older teen. The younger ump kept talking to the other team. At one point he shared that he had previously gotten in trouble for talking to the home team too much...as he was talking to the home team. Ah...the irony!

One of our kids laid down a bunt. He missed the ball. The home plate ump called it "ball". It looked like our kid did not get his bat back in time. The ump gave the kid a benefit of a doubt. It happens.

The opposing coach questioned the call. The ump was not backing down. The coach kept arguing. The ump asked him to get off the field. He kept arguing, so the ump had to ask the coach to leave the game. I got nervous because of how things were escalating. I thought punches were coming.

The young field ump tried to explain to the ump while he was wrong, and what the rule for bunting was. A grandpa on our team (a baseball lifetime expert I'd say) came over and told us that that the infield ump can't make that call. I would have called the young ump out!

Throughout the rest of the game the home plate ump kept asking different players and spectators "Do you think I don't know baseball?" A rhetorical question that nobody dare answer, but he kept asking.

Our kid that likes to steal home was standing between third and home, daring the pitcher to do something about it. I don't like how he does that, but it must be legal...he never gets called for it. The pitcher did not know what to do. He had a balk called, so the runner advanced to home and scored.

The pitcher started to cry. He didn't understand the balk. An assistant coach on the other team ran out to the mound, without calling for timeout. The ump tried to get him off the field. I felt bad for the kid. He was sobbing and could not pull it together.

Another odd thing about the game was that some of the balls the other team were using we softballs!

The game ended on yet another low point. Our games go 6 innings, or 2 hours (a new inning cannot start after the 2 hour mark. There is a 5 run limit on each inning until the 6th, which is a open inning. We started the 5th inning just before the 2 hour mark. We were up first. When the other team came up the opposing assistant coach wanted to declare it a open inning. Our coach said that would have had been decided at the beginning of the inning. We were up by 6.

"That's it...we're done." He ordered his team to line up on the field. The game really was over at that point. Even if we let them have an open inning, they would not have scored the 7 points they needed to win.

I feel bad for the kids on both teams this past Friday night. They learned that adults lose their temper. They did not learn sportsmanship.

Should we not display higher levels of conduct for our kids?

We act too much like the pros.