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

It’s kind of an “unwritten rule” in all sports, that assistant coaches are supposed to be “seen and not heard”. What this means in youth baseball is that the first base or third base coaches, who are often not the manager, are not supposed to speak to umpires. Their job is to help the manager. Their job is not to give umpires grief over balls and strikes or safe/out calls that they may disagree with.

Managers are the only members of the coaching staff who should be speaking to umpires about anything, and even managers aren’t supposed to question or make comments about “umpire judgment calls”, such as safe/out or balls/strikes. While it’s perfectly okay for an assistant coach to ask an umpire “What’s the count?” or “How many outs are there?”, when they start “riding” the umpire for whatever reason, most umpires will not put up with that. The umpire will usually either warn the assistant coach to keep his opinions to himself, or tell the manager to control his assistant coach.

One veteran umpire had a unique way of dealing with overly vocal assistant coaches.This umpire was also an actor in plays put on by local community theaters. He’d walk over to the loudmouth assistant coach and say to him “Coach, I’m sorry, but your role in today’s production does not come with a speaking part!”

Usually the assistant coach’s response to this was a dumbfounded look on his face before he figured out that the umpire was trying to tell him in an unusual way to “Shut the f— up, or I’m throwing you out!”

I’ve never tried this line myself, but this umpire found it worked for him. Again, having to listen to coaches complaining takes the fun out of officiating, and when officials find the job isn’t fun anymore, they quit!

These are the reasons why youth sports are in the dire situation we find ourselves in now. There aren’t always enough umpires and referees to cover all the games, and we are practically begging people to consider becoming youth sports officials. Unfortunately, it appears that the situation is continuing to trend in the wrong direction, and may get worse before it gets better.

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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 Escape Into Fiction in Franklin, MA. This post is part twenty five of a series of articles based on the book.