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

After umpiring a game of 11 year olds, four very large, very angry dads, parents of players whose team had just blown a ten run lead to lose the game, yelled for me to come over to them because they wanted to “talk” to me. These four guys were all the size of lumberjacks, and had been on my case for the entire game. I tried to avoid having to deal with throwing them out, so I had their coach speak to them a couple of times during the game. They behaved very poorly the entire game and were totally convinced that the reason why their team blew a ten run lead and wound up losing the game was my fault. It had nothing to do with walks, wild pitches, dropped fly balls, booted grounders, and off-target throws their team had made in the last two innings of the game. Even the last play of the game, where their pitcher hit a batter with the game tied and bases full to drive in the winning run was my fault!

When the game ended, one of them yelled over to me, “HEY BLUE, COME OVER HERE. WE WANNA “TALK” TO YOU!” There were four of them and one of me, and they stationed themselves between where the field was and the parking lot, so I’d have to walk past them to get to my car. I had no intention of going anywhere near them. Fortunately a local police officer was watching the game, and I asked her if she could walk me to my car, which she did. If that police officer wasn’t there, I really don’t know what might have happened. It all turned out fine, and it’s a funny story to tell now, but it definitely was NOT funny at the time. Do you think that incidents like this might discourage other people from rushing to sign up to become a youth sports official?

I DO! Even just hearing this story of me and the four angry lumberjacks might make prospective youth sports officials rethink their plans.

Next time I’ll discuss an incident where a coach blamed everything that went wrong for his team on what he called “the clueless umpires.”

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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 thirteen of a series of articles based on the book.