Part XI of Why Youth Sports Umpires and Referees are Calling it Quits!

Here are some situations where misbehaving adults in youth sports make life miserable for others:

1) How about one coach challenging another coach to a fight in the middle of a game?

2)How about coaches or parents screaming at umpires whenever they disagree with a call?

3)How about coaches who go to great lengths and find devious ways to “stack” their team?

4)How about parents and coaches who, from the first pitch to the last, treat umpires like “the enemy”, riding them and complaining non-stop the entire game?

5) How about umpires actually needing police protection from angry parents after a game?

1- Pretty pathetic. I saw this happen when one coach’s team was getting its ass kicked by the other team. He thought the other coach was trying to “run up the score”, so he figured the only honorable thing for any role model coach to do was to fight the other coach in front of a bunch of nine-year old players and their parents watching the game.

2-Pretty lame. Can you imagine going through a normal workday getting screamed at dozens of times whenever someone thinks you might have made a mistake, even something minor that may not have even been your fault?

3- Pretty sad. I’ve seen coaches offer to “divide up the players into teams” for their leagues, eliminating the need to hold a draft that year, which seemed very nice of them until everyone realizes after the season started that he’s created a super-stacked “dream team” for himself so his team can easily destroy everyone else.

4-Pretty dumb.These are the same parents and coaches who can’t understand why we now have an umpire shortage.

5-Pretty scary. Being idiotic enough to actually think your kid’s team lost a game because of the umpire is sad enough. Being so vocal about it that the umpire feels physically threatened goes way beyond sad. What these clueless people need to do is look in the mirror to find the answer to the question: “Why are there sometimes no umpires for my kid’s games?”

Next time I’ll discuss some specific incidents of these situations in greater detail. Sometimes the situations get pretty funny, but they’re funny in a “What the hell’s wrong with these people?” kind of way.

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Randy Corwin is a veteran Massachusetts youth baseball umpire and author of the book, OBNOXIOUS PARENTS AND RUTHLESS COACHES, which is now available at Amazon Books, Barnes and Noble’s online bookstore, and at An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Cafe in Plainville, MA. This post is part eleven of a series of articles based on the book.