Here's the situation: high school game, last game of the season. Score is 18 to 0. Losing team is on defense with one out. Runner at third, ball is hit to the third baseman who fields it cleanly and throws it home. Runner coming from third stops with her left foot on the chalk line, catcher tries to apply the tag and runner arches her back and runs about 5 feet toward the pitcher's circle to avoid the tag. Umpire makes no call. The resulting rundown situation ends with the runner being safe at third and the batter safe at second. Several parents in the stands, including myself, were yelling that the runner had left the basepath to avoid the tag and should be out. Head coach goes out to appeal the call, and both officials tell her that the call stands and go sit down. I tell home plate umpire to check his phone because he missed a call.
Defense has to get through 4 more batters to get two more outs to end the half inning. At that time the home plate umpire walks over to our side and singles me out because I'm keeping scorebook (for my benefit, not for the team - they have student managers who do that in an official capacity for the team) and says "if you're going to make comments to the officials you need to learn the rules." I reply that I'm very familiar with the rules as they apply to this particular situation and that he should just admit that he blew the call. He got very agitated, started yelling that none of us have a clue, and had to be physically restrained by the field official before making even more of a spectacle of himself. Once the field official got him calmed down then the field official came over and issued a warning to me and told me that they were right and I was wrong and if there one more outburst from anyone that I would be ejected and reported to our state's athletic governing body. They even went a step further and informed our head coach that if I got ejected then she would be ejected as well.
At no point in time did anyone use any foul or demeaning language. As passionate as we may be about a play in the heat of the moment, we do remember that there are teenage girls in the dugout just a few feet away.
By coincidence, I happened to be parked next to one of the officials in the parking lot. After the game, as I was standing by the car waiting for my daughter to come out, both officials approached me and told me that they wanted to educate me on the rules. At that time, I pulled out my phone and read to them, out loud, the rules regarding base path and the effect of a play when a runner moves more than 3 feet out of the base path in order to avoid a tag by a defender (I downloaded the rules a couple of years ago so I could study up on them when I was coaching Little League ball. Granted it is the 2014 ASA rules, but there aren't very many variations between ASA rules and in NFHS rules, right?). Their response was, "well the games over now and there's nothing anybody can do about it, so you have yourself a great evening."
Here are my questions:
1. Was the runner out or was a no call the proper call?
2. Is there a rule that says the head coach can be ejected even if she did nothing wrong or was that a scare tactic used by the umpires to get me to be quiet?
3. Should I explore options for reporting these officials or should I just let it go since the season is over now?
Defense has to get through 4 more batters to get two more outs to end the half inning. At that time the home plate umpire walks over to our side and singles me out because I'm keeping scorebook (for my benefit, not for the team - they have student managers who do that in an official capacity for the team) and says "if you're going to make comments to the officials you need to learn the rules." I reply that I'm very familiar with the rules as they apply to this particular situation and that he should just admit that he blew the call. He got very agitated, started yelling that none of us have a clue, and had to be physically restrained by the field official before making even more of a spectacle of himself. Once the field official got him calmed down then the field official came over and issued a warning to me and told me that they were right and I was wrong and if there one more outburst from anyone that I would be ejected and reported to our state's athletic governing body. They even went a step further and informed our head coach that if I got ejected then she would be ejected as well.
At no point in time did anyone use any foul or demeaning language. As passionate as we may be about a play in the heat of the moment, we do remember that there are teenage girls in the dugout just a few feet away.
By coincidence, I happened to be parked next to one of the officials in the parking lot. After the game, as I was standing by the car waiting for my daughter to come out, both officials approached me and told me that they wanted to educate me on the rules. At that time, I pulled out my phone and read to them, out loud, the rules regarding base path and the effect of a play when a runner moves more than 3 feet out of the base path in order to avoid a tag by a defender (I downloaded the rules a couple of years ago so I could study up on them when I was coaching Little League ball. Granted it is the 2014 ASA rules, but there aren't very many variations between ASA rules and in NFHS rules, right?). Their response was, "well the games over now and there's nothing anybody can do about it, so you have yourself a great evening."
Here are my questions:
1. Was the runner out or was a no call the proper call?
2. Is there a rule that says the head coach can be ejected even if she did nothing wrong or was that a scare tactic used by the umpires to get me to be quiet?
3. Should I explore options for reporting these officials or should I just let it go since the season is over now?