Four Hours, And That's The Best You Got Blue?

People know that not only am I a heckler of game officials, I am one in several sports. I've refereed basketball, flag football, floor hockey, baseball and ice hockey. I currently am registered with two associations in the DC area and have the insight to know when an umpire isn't doing such a great job. I've pointed out positioning errors to on-field/on-ice officials they didn't think anyone except a supervisor would see.

When it comes to me and umpires, there is a love-hate respect among a few of us. Tim Timmons comes to mind on the baseball side. He and I had quite a few run-ins when he was in the Carolina League. I've also seen him umpire in AA, the AAA World Series and in the Majors. He and I have a lot of respect for each other even though he and I didn't see eye-to-eye when he felt it necessary to give three players plus the manager of a WINNING team the heave-ho one day.

C. B. Bucknor is another that comes across. He's one known to get into arguements with anyone who dares. The only problem, he loses every argument with people he can't eject, so he gives them the finger. He did to me in AA and in AAA. The AAA one was quite funny as I pointed out that as the third base umpire you don't have many calls to make. When he blew his fourth consecutive call of the night (out of a possible four calls), he finally turned to me and told me to "Go to hell." Thanks C. B., you got your name in a blog 13 years later. Great fodder my friend.

I'll even mix it up while coaching. I've been ejected as both a player and a coach, though the funniest one I ever had didn't result in an ejection, but my only career head coaching win. I was demonstrating on the field about how my player could be standing completely in foul territory, have the ball hit off his chest and the ball be fair. So I stood where my third baseman was standing, held out my scorebook in front of me and dropped it...completely in foul territory. At that point, the umpires knew I meant business and the other team stepped it up but it might've been too late.

Nothing however, will compare to the confrontation I had with an umpire who wasn't even on the field nor umpiring the game in question, telling me that I had to get back to the pressbox. Thanks to this umpire, he gets into a blog not 13 years later like Mr. Bucknor, but a mere six days after it happened.

John Gretz, the Umpire in Chief for Washington Glory games in NPF usually sits in the stands while games are going on, no matter how bad his umpires are on the field. And some of them are some of the worst umpires I have ever seen, people who listen to the broadcasts know of whom I speak.

This particular night, a Saturday night with a lot of fans in the stands at Westfield High School, the game was moving slow although the umpires we had were the best we have available to us. The plate umpire, Anthony Tutt does a great job and has fun umpiring. You can't fault a guy who obviously has fun while umpiring. When he makes a mistake you can be assured that it probably won't be happening again.

Anyway, there was lightning off in the distance for quite some time and the game was nearing the three-hour mark which is long in NPF games that normally last two hours. It was a great back-and-forth game but for some reason the umpires decided to stop the game because of the lightning.

We have radar in the pressbox, the ability to see what's going on weather-wise. We also have a device that detects lightning.

Anthony stops the game, and has a conversation with his fellow umpires on the field and the coaches. I go down, not only as a member of the Washington Glory, but also Fairfax County Public Schools (the games are played at a public high school) and someone who does a lot for the NPF as a whole.

I head down to let him know what he has available to him and as I'm telling him, John Gretz gets in my face to tell me that I have no jurisdiction here--when in fact I do. Ironically here, Gretz has none whatsoever and with the stuff he was pulling in this situation, I could've thrown an umpire out of the game! Yep, he was a person in the stands that was interfering with a game official performing his duties.

This guy, an umpire who is not even on the field, just showed the exact reason why umpires and officials are attacked. He firmly believes he is right and is the only one who is right because he is an umpire. His on-field performance however, is abominal. It's unfortunate that this is the best we have for fastpitch softball which tells me that there are a lot of girls who are playing this sport who are getting subpar officiating and probably losing interest in the sport.

Umpires with chips on their shoulders are not needed in baseball/softball. Heck, watch an NBA game and the officials there act like the fans paid to see them. Major League Baseball umpires were like that until the mid-90's when a bunch were told their services were no longer needed because there were others just as qualified who would call the strike zone, not show up 100 or more pounds overweight and would not bait coaches or players into getting ejected. It's created a friendlier game and baseball is better for it on all levels.

The game in question took three hours and 59 minutes, ten innings and five pitchers to complete. There were seven lead changes and it was a long night. In addition to that, I was doinig play-by-play, PA and playing the music. Yeah, long night and it took an umpire to over-exert his authority to make it even longer.