There’s a Difference Between Being Demanding and Being Mean

We’ve all seen the stereotype in dozens of sports movies over the years: the coach who constantly screams at and demeans his/her players early in the movie only to go on to win the a championship during the climactic ending. It makes for great Hollywood drama. But unfortunately too many people today watch those movies […]

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Amen Ken! Have you written blogs on how officials should be respected and the shortage of officials? As an umpire assignor, I'm dealing with a shortage of officials and two situations where a fan of a 14u softball team and parents of a JV baseball team were screaming at umpires. Luckily, they were both guys who had been umpiring for over 40 years, or I'd be short two more officials if they weren't as experienced and thick-skinned as they were.

Dabears17 said:

Amen Ken! Have you written blogs on how officials should be respected and the shortage of officials? As an umpire assignor, I'm dealing with a shortage of officials and two situations where a fan of a 14u softball team and parents of a JV baseball team were screaming at umpires. Luckily, they were both guys who had been umpiring for over 40 years, or I'd be short two more officials if they weren't as experienced and thick-skinned as they were.

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Actually I have weighed in on that topic. https://fastpitchlane.softballsuccess.com/2022/05/27/the-umpire-dilemma/

Maybe it's time to again. Because until AI becomes more sophisticated and more affordable we're going to be depending on humans to volunteer to do the job. And it's hard to get that when you're setting yourself up for abuse all day. Kind of like working at the lost luggage counter at the airport.

Dabears17 said:

Amen Ken! Have you written blogs on how officials should be respected and the shortage of officials? As an umpire assignor, I'm dealing with a shortage of officials and two situations where a fan of a 14u softball team and parents of a JV baseball team were screaming at umpires. Luckily, they were both guys who had been umpiring for over 40 years, or I'd be short two more officials if they weren't as experienced and thick-skinned as they were.

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I was at a 7u game last year where the parents kept yelling at a young umpire. She wasn't good but you could tell she was very young and was probably new to it. My wife ended up seeing the umpire after the game walking out of the complex in tears. My wife struck up a Convo with her and learned she was 14 years old and this was her first game. Also her mom was in the hospital with an illness.

It was really sad parents would treat a girl like that. I guarantee if anyone treated their daughter like that they would be pissed. And we wonder why nobody wants to be an umpire. I also blame the league. No way they should have let her umpire by herself without some help. They were setting her up for failure.

Adam S said:

I was at a 7u game last year where the parents kept yelling at a young umpire. She wasn't good but you could tell she was very young and was probably new to it. My wife ended up seeing the umpire after the game walking out of the complex in tears. My wife struck up a Convo with her and learned she was 14 years old and this was her first game. Also her mom was in the hospital with an illness.

It was really sad parents would treat a girl like that. I guarantee if anyone treated their daughter like that they would be pissed. And we wonder why nobody wants to be an umpire. I also blame the league. No way they should have let her umpire by herself without some help. They were setting her up for failure.

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When I was coaching, I kept my mouth shut if the umpires were obviously younger than 30 and had only been umpiring a year or two.

I still try to go to games umpired by youth umpires to make sure the adults behave themselves.

I'm not saying I was perfect, but most of the time, I was mostly good. There was one time I made a youth umpire cry. It was an 8u tournament fundraiser a travel team was running. They had parents umpiring at home and the players being the field umpire. I had a 2-1 count, my scorekeeper had a 2-1 count, and the umpire said she had a 2-1 count. My smartest player and best athlete on that team was at bat. She asked the umpire to confirm the count. The umpire said 2-1. She called a pitch where the bottom of the ball was at my batter's nose strike 3.

The other team was Home Book, the umpire checked with Home Book, who said it was Strike 3. I gave the adult umpire a bit of a hard time.

The tournament director came over to me about 10 minutes after the game ended to chastise me because the youth umpire was crying after for being cross with her mother. I apologized to the youth umpire. I told the Tournament director he should put the youth umpires behind the plate because I would never give a youth umpire grief, but if I was paying a tournament fee, the adult umpires better be decent.

I was president of my league at the time, and we never sent an 8u team to that tournament again.