Baseball Talk: Hitting, Pitching, Catching Strategy

Favorite Umpire Stories

Everyone has to have a fav. concerning "Blue"....

Out with it !!!!

 

Did you see the article in the Observer today about the umpire throwing Tony Gwynn out because of a uniform discrepancy.

I think this guy just wanted some press.

 

Yeah...the really embarrassing thing about that incident from the ump's perspective is that Gwynn was actually wearing the CORRECT color! The team had changed its colors this year!

 

The Really embarrassing part of this is that everyone in the dugout had on the same color jacket as Gwynn.

There is a minor difference between BLACK and RED even if you're color blind.

Here is a link in case you haven't seen it yet.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/aztecs/20030216-9999_2s16colbase.html

 

Das right!!
This guy was really gunning for Tony!

 

Applejack - - - How much do you think was really related to the ump being intimidated by Tony's presence and baseball authority?

 

Well, I don't know if there were any series of events that came before the incident but, what I could conclude from the article is that this guy wanted to set a precedent by throwing out a major league star baseball player to show that he will not use his status to intimidate him.
he had it out for Tony, plain and simple.

 

When the kids were younger, we had an umpire who had a soft place for catchers (duh!) ... He'd give tips to both teams catchers between innings - that sort of thing.

We had a game come up and the guy told both catchers when they went to the plate with their gear on in the 1st..."If you can frame it, it's a strike". Our guy knew what he meant, but the other team's catcher didn't. Our catcher decided to "test" the ump's definition of "framing" - with a RH batter up, he set up down the middle of the LH batters box. - Strike 1. The ump never said a word to either catcher the remainder of the game. Whenever we wanted a K, the catcher just moved further & further out. On some pitches, you could have put another catcher beside him directly behind the plate and their knees wouldn't have touched.

Final score 8-0. I don't believe that the ump felt going into the game that the kids understood what he was saying, but he was "true to his word".

 

Several years ago when my son played Babe Ruth ball, his 13-14 year old All-Star team was playing in a tournament at Goodman Park in Matthews, and their first round game was against Matthews. The Matthews athletic association had set up a tent outside of the fence down the left field line, where they were selling tickets and tournament souvenirs such as T-shirts, etc. to raise money for the MARA athletic association. A man in the tent, whom I had never seen before, was taking up money for tickets and souvenirs. Well, an hour or so later, my son's game starts and guess who's calling the balls and strikes behind the plate? Bingo. It's the guy who was in the tent selling tickets and souvenirs for MARA, now umpiring a game involving a Matthews team!! Is that incredible or what? Well, I asked somebody who the umpire was, and they told me his name was Jack Cheves. Now most people with one ounce of common sense would call that situation a conflict of interest. I don't have to tell you who won the game, do I?

Why in God's name would an umpire (supposedly impartial) align himself with an athletic association by selling tickets and T-shirts??? As my son went on to play Babe Ruth, high school and Legion ball, I found old Jack to be one of the worst, if not the worst, umpire in the area. And definitely partial toward Matthews teams. True story.

 

I can remember a similar story to NCBBALLFAN's story. Many many moons ago, I was coaching a Little League team and the homeplate umpire was actually trying to give tips to both catchers over the course of the game. And he was very nice about it and actually he's a nice guy too. But things got interesting about midway through the game because the opposing coach switched catchers (don't remember why). Anyway the backup catcher couldn't catch a lick and this umpire quit being so friendly as he preceded to start taking a beating from all the pitches this young kid was missing. Finally, the umpire yells TIMEOUT and walked over to the opposing dugout and ORDERED the coach to switch catchers immediately. The opposing coach obeyed the umpire and switched catchers, problem is, the next kid was even worse and couldn't catch either.

I hated it for the kids, but it was quite humorous if you truly enjoy seeing umpires get their due...