Umpire Shortage - Little League Baseball and Boards of Directors (and any other youth leagues by different names)

 In the early 2,000's, my son had just entered Little League in the teeball league of Little League.  I was approached and asked to be a coach, they pretty much do that all the time in LL, it's all volunteer, learn as you go. 

Fast forward several years and I was approached to be an LL umpire.  I didn't want to do it after seeing how umpires were being treated but I eventually caved in but I told myself I wouldn't allow myself to be abused like some of these other umpires were. 

Basically, our league was a lawless madhouse of parents that would get into fist fights with each other during games, call the other team's coaches and even 10 year old players foul names and direct cussing at them, yell at umpires the entire games and basically make it a very miserable experience. 

I ended this when, as also being a board member, I initiated a zero tolerance policy (this is a really shortened version here).  It was probably a thousand words long, had very clear policy directed towards behavior and intended action that would be taken against anyone violating the policy.

The first game we started this, I had the entire board out there.  As parents started in on their ridiculous nonsense, I would stop the game, point at the offenders and have them removed from the premises completely.  Probably half the parents were escorted out to the parking lot where they were instructed they could wait for their kid.  

One set of parents hit one of the board members and the police were called. I don't recall if the parents were charged with assault, I do remember that after that night, the amount of bs from parents declined dramatically.  

Fast forward again. I never claimed to be the greatest umpire on earth, but I was definitely all about crowd control. It wasn't really umpire's job to do that, but the situations we were encountering were drastic, outrageous and often times criminal in nature.  The district administrator would have me officiate championship games, usually the ones with the most potential for unbelievably bad behavior being exhibited by parents.

I had the fortune or misfortune - depending on how you look at it - of being assigned as field judge for a do or die game.  This game would decide who went to the state finals and who took their balls and bats - and went home.  I was warned in advance by the district administrator about the potential for very bad behavior and so I thought, maybe it was a good idea if he found someone else to do it? 

No, he replied, it's exactly why I want you to be involved with this game. Whatever people thought about me at the time, I had acquired the reputation for not putting up with parental or coach abuse at games.  And so this night was one that I will never forget.

The game started, there was some 500 people in the stands and standing around watching the game.  The stakes were high and emotions were high with it. These people took their Majors league championship game quite seriously and I didn't have a problem with that. 

However.....

It was about 15ish minutes into the game and the yelling at each other started. It was so loud that players couldn't hear their coaches trying to yell instructions at them.  What I heard was appalling. Grown men and women yelling insults at both the other team's coaches and cussing out other team's players, this was going both ways.  They were cussing out the plate judge for his balls and strikes calls. It was so bad that I just stood there, looking around at this nonsense and wondering why the plate judge wasn't doing anything about it.

Well, it's because he was mortified. After a while of this I couldn't take it anymore and I stopped the game, got into a huddle with the plate judge and asked him why he was tolerating all of this, even with the game stopped loud yelling back and forth at a feverish pitch.  He said "I don't know what to do!".  Well, I did.  I stopped the game and ordered the team back to their dugouts.  

The yelling got much louder at that point, most of it now directed at me.  I just stood there in the middle of the diamond.  Like at least 5 minutes if not longer.  I talked in a normal tone, which, of course, no one could hear for the noise of people still yelling insults at each other.  But, people finally got a clue and once people were stopping with the bs, I yelled loudly that nothing will happen until everyone shuts up. 

Yup, I told them to all shut their mouths.  At that point, they didn't deserve and respect.  The entire crowd of people eventually shut up.  That's when I went off on the whole lot of them. Yelling at coaches, cussing out 12 year old boys, threatening to beat each other up.  I gave them all a choice: You can either stop with the abuse or you can go out to the parking lot and wait for the game to end.

Did I actually have that authority? I didn't care, I did have the authority to stop the game and the league would have to make it up - quickly actually since it was finals.  I didn't want to stop the game, I wanted these people to act their age.  Be the role models they should be for their own kids.  At this point, and alleged umpire in the crowd started calling me out, saying I couldn't do that and then, after I didn't back down, alleging that "you aren't an umpire at all".  

Instead of arguing with him, I appealed to the crowd. You can either tell him to shut up or everyone is going to go home, the game will have to be decided by the league on how to move forward with it.  This turned the attention away from me and on to the alleged judge whom everyone started yelling shut up!  

Everyone just slumped and sort of caved at that point.  You can't yell at other people's kids or coaches! Well what CAN we do? one vociferous lady yelled at me?  You CAN cheer your kids team!  Be as raucous about good behavior as your about acting out. Your own children are more adults than you are right now.  I was laying it on them, it was quite disheartening to see people acting out like this. I know the stakes were high, but that doesn't excuse acting infantile at a youth sporting event.

I mean, this went on for probably 20-25 minutes.  Everyone finally agreed - I made everyone that I could speak up and agree to my terms.  I called the teams back out, the coaches figured out where they were when the game was abruptly ended and they actually thanked me. The coaches were no part of the ridiculous behavior, for their part, they were acting more professional than anything and definitely were focused on their players playing their best game, not chewing them out for mistakes or striking out.

Yes, it got loud again, but this time you could hear the parents yelling for their team.  If there was any cussing or threats, I couldn't hear them and yes, I was listening.  

You see, I was reading stories about how there is a shortage of umpires for Little League and other youth sporting events and even high school umpires.  Well, nothing has changed after reading these stories. Umpires don't want to be subjected to that kind of abuse where parents are dissing them and disparaging them for whatever call on balls and strikes or plays made at the bases or home plate.  Why should anyone have to tolerate that?

I know you need thick skin to be an officiate at a game, but this is beyond that.  It is really up the league admins to deal with these problems and it's obvious they are not. I could teach a course on how to handle a league with bad parents, mostly it's get in their face with a list of rules and a zero tolerance policy and call the police where appropriate.  There was a time when the police would park in between fields and wait their for the violence to begin, it was that bad.  Our zero tolerance policy and heavily enforcing it got rid of that element.  

It's the kids that suffer in the end if there isn't anyone that is willing to literally step up to the plate and volunteer or even get paid to put up with that kind of verbal and even physical abuse. It's hard enough to learn all the rules - Little League had some different rules than you see with MLB or higher up level of play.  But regardless of the league or whatever name it is operating under, you need to deal with this situation head on.

If umpires know you have their back, you won't have a shortage of them for long.  Umpires typically do the best job they can without bias towards one team or another. "Bad calls" tend to even themselves out with bad plays by one of the teams poorly executing plays during the game resulting in them losing. You might get a parent attempting to diss you on that one bad call until another parent from the same team says, yeah, but look how our team played tonight. They wouldn't have won regardless.  

I have made bad calls. Not on purpose, it just happens.  I had a parent follow me out to the parking lot, threaten physical violence on me and actually went to his vehicle to get a hand gun.  Yes, you read that right, he was going to shoot me over a game.  Well, I didn't wait around, I hopped in my truck and took off - and called the police.  I did make a bad call and realized it after the fact.  I apologized but that wasn't good enough.    

This was a long time ago yet obviously, the situation hasn't changed at all.  If you are involved in a league on the board of directors and you have a shortage of umpires, it will do you well to consider why you have that shortage. If it's anything like what I've been reading about abuse being heaped on to the official's heads and the league doing absolutely nothing to stop it, you can go look in a mirror and point the finger at yourselves.  

Do something about it. It's your responsibility to enact a code of conduct and apply it to everyone attending games.  In our case, it was a zero tolerance policy that ended our problems.  After we applied that policy to everyone at one particular game and a couple of them afterwards, parents started policing themselves.  If one parent did happen to lash out at anyone, the rest would tell them to stop.  Get the parents on your side and you will see effective change.

BTW, if you have a kid on a team, considering volunteering. For Board, for umpire, coaching, whatever.  These leagues don't run without an ample supply of volunteers making it all happen!  

 Tuesday - 9:30 am

I didn't make any plans for today, just going to wing it. I knew I would want to sleep in and laze around this morning, which is exactly what I've been doing. It helps that there are no kids here to constantly get into my personal business asking for this, that or just be with them.  In fact, this is likely the last day I have to have in freedom, so it's probably going to be a lot of time spent at home.  Today was just marked off for working, there were no canceled loads.

Yesterday.  I was a little apprehensive about working yesterday for the tornado watches which turned into tornado warnings and apparently several tornadoes did touch down in the region, we, fortunately, didn't get any of that.

Beryl came barreling through here with winds and heavy rain, yes, but nothing horrible. The power went out for quite a while, but not like a few summers ago when the power went out after an event like this and stayed out just short of 7 days.  

I think I will continue on with cleaning out the vehicle. I have used it as a work truck since I started the process of building out the park and it's got a lot of stuff in there I need to find a place to store it and organize and pull some stuff out of there.  I just need it cleaned out for the upcoming trip and I just want it clean regardless of vacations.  It's going to need a carpet cleaning as well.

Mother says I shouldn't come until September, it's too hot to drive back here and why take the risk? I didn't bother to tell her because I dunno if she's going to be alive in September, I thought that would be morbid and cruel, she seems to be doing pretty well, actually.  Apparently she doesn't think life is ending soon?  She'll hit her 90th birthday in September if I have her age correct.  She is still up in the mountains anyway, my oldest brother is taking care of her in that he's giving her a ride up there and back and making sure her needs are taken care of.  It helps that he has a full blown cabin maybe 7 miles away down a forest service road. 

I mean, I'd rather go when it cools down for several reasons. I just feel a little uneasy about waiting that long.  

I spent a little time praying for a 6  month old little girl who is in surgery as I'm writing this.  There's something wrong with one of her kidneys and nothing short of surgery was going to fix it, apparently. She's the daughter of one of the friends in the group.  Just got a message from mama that they have started the "robotic" portion of the surgery and it is going along perfectly. 

There's certainly things I can do at the park today as well, I just don't know if I want to waste a day off going over there and working.  Allen has done a great job of taking care of things and I'm happy so far with his work.  I laid out the amount of hours I want him to work each month for free rent in exchange and so far, it appears he will actually do more than that.  He was out there cutting a tree in the pouring rain yesterday.  I advised him that I have no expectations whatsoever for him to work in inclimate weather nor do I think it's a great idea for him to be out there in the heat of the day (yesterday was great temps, just was commenting on overall working conditions).  

Im not paying him anything, just giving free lot rent. It's worth something, definitely and especially considering the lot he has, but I've needed the help and I've got a job supplementing my income.  For now, as long as he continues like this, I'm good with it.  

My bank account is doing pretty well considering some of the recent expenses.  Just paid the $465 to have the septic sucked out. They just empty all the vaults. It should be good for quite a while now.  

I'm going to buy another bridge for the small creek area.  It's small but the span is about 8 feet if you really want to get above the water line when it rains.  It's a 6 footer in there now and it keeps getting washed downstream every time a downpour comes, it's fairly well ruined unfortunately.  I found a metal 8 foot long bridge with rails on either side for around $200.  I won't try to have Allen do that, that's my deal.  They don't come fully put together, it comes in a kit and take a couple hours to put it together.

The news has been come repetitious - extremely so - in calls for Biden to step down, speculation on Biden stepping down, who would take his place if he steps down and Biden adamantly stating he is NOT going to step down. Ridiculous nonsense, I am not watching much news right now for they don't seem to be able to unglue themselves from that story and actually cover other things that are going on. The only thing that does seem clear is the Biden has the delegates, enough to override all of his detractors and if he doesn't want to step down, I don't see them having a path to do so except for invoking the 25th amendment.  

I would say I would go along with that, but then you have Harris running this nation until election time? Does anyone actually believe she has the capacity to be able to deal with world leaders? What, is she going to go cackling at them, perhaps, to somehow force them to do something different? I expect Putin and Xi would just dismiss her as a pile of nothingness, insignificant and not even worth considering.  America is not in a good place right now, that's what I will say.  

I finally saw the number for this tractor dealer near Nacogdoches.  I thought I was calling them already, then found out who I was talking to is a different dealer with similar name that is maybe 5 miles away.  They only deal in brand new tractors, I wanted to try to ask about how much this place wants for one of their tractors and if they have any kind of financing.  

The dumpster. I have finally come to the point where it is definitively time to move it.  I am done with these neighbors just helping themselves to the use of it, dumping large amounts of their household trash into it and not caring.  They have been caught several times now and the guests told them to leave and that they can't do that.  I would have pulled the trash right back out of the dumpster and dumped it on the hood of their car.  And now that I reminded myself of that, request has been made to relocate the dumpster. It's not free, but neither is the overage charges I'm getting for these people overfilling my dumpster. It will save money in the long run.  This is why I've been calling it a theft of services, it's not free for me and it's pretty awful looking seeing the thing so overloaded that trash is piled high and even sometimes leaving bags of it on the ground.

I'm done with that and it's going to be place about another 200 feet back, around  a corner that the garbage truck will actually have to drive through the park driveway to access.  They would have had to come back and go through there to turn around anyway.  

If all I were doing was the park and not working a trucking job, I would just get about 4 residential cans and just take them out front every week. Save the money and have them near the amenities shed. I just don't want a dumpster back there because it's severely ugly, attracts flies and rodents and then the predators to come eat the rodents.  That would be snakes and cats, for the most part.  The cans aren't quite so ugly and more manageable.  There is another refuse removal provider that operates in the area, their cans are significantly cheaper than Republic's but they don't offer dumpster service.  

Anyway, it's getting near 11 am and I can safely say I have done nothing but lay in bed and then get up, let the dog out and now drink coffee.  No regrets.  I think I will get another steaming cup of coffee and some ice water and the mosey on over to the park and see what's going on over there.  Robert's wife blew up my phone last night long after I had gone to bed, I turn the ringer off so such calls don't affect my sleep.

She left a long message about how her son has "left the park" after I texted her much earlier about him speeding through the park and also doing a burn out in the driveway.  I didn't ask him to leave, I asked him to slow down, thanks.  Then she went off into "we have never disrespected you, we have always treated you with respect" and "I don't know why Allen is treating him that way" and all kinds of other stuff that I just listened to, rejected and ejected out of my mind.  What it really turns out to be is the fact that Robert - and her - are no longer going to get free rent and that the lot rent is due on the 17th.  That's 8 days from now.  I'm assuming from her tones that they aren't going to have the money.

This isn't my problem, there was no expectation of giving them a free lot when they moved in and that only occurred after I saw Robert doing a lot of work. "Well, if you are going to continue to work like this, I'll just give you the lot rent for free". It was after that that he almost completely stopped working altogether, maybe mowing the doggy park every week and perhaps taking trash out once a week as well.  Maybe 2 hours a week if I'm lucky out of him. I've already gone into great detail of the other nonsense he was engaging in so I won't do that again here.  

Beyond that, at the time we were discussing the lot rent, Robert stated that it would be no problem for him to go out and get a job and that he would walk to one if necessary. Those are his words, not my rendition of them.  Well Robert, if y'all intend on staying there, you're going to have to go get that job that you proclaimed would be so easy to get.  I won't wait, tho, he's lazy and sits inside of that trailer all day long.  I get that it's hot, but he said he would work in the mornings or evening.  Yeah, 45 minutes per week spent on the doggy park comes nowhere near what I want for working and he fully knows what I expect out of him.  

The whole situation is rather annoying at this point.  Like, I don't even want to discuss this with them any further, I've made my intentions, desires and expectations exceedingly clear both in person, face to face and in writing, texting and over the phone.  

Enough.  I'm getting off my chair and going to get moving. Definitely go over there and see what's up and what I need to do.

G'day