Here's one I've never heard before....

A friend of mine told me yesterday, that at his son's ballgame Fri., the opposing coach called out his son's coach to admonish the pitcher for "staring down" his batters after a strikeout. I'm still laughing.

 

Actually, I have experienced something close to this. I was coaching a 12-13 yr. old AAU team many moons ago and I actually had the homeplate umpire "warn" my pitcher after one of the middle innings because the ump didn't like how my pitcher was staring. My pitcher's intense look was the only thing the ump didn't like, my pitcher hadn't said a word, he hadn't hit anyone, in fact he had been pitching a great game. The ump just didn't like his stare. I simply told my pitcher to use the idiot umps words as fuel to "pick it up a notch". My kid threw hard before, but after this incident he actually stayed focused and listened to me and was literally throwing high octane. Don't remember how many strikeouts he had, but afterwards the opposing coach asked me what in the world did I say to my pitcher about midway thru the game. I just told the other coach the truth, it was nothing I had said, that in fact the ump motivated my pitcher for me,,, the opposing coach just shook his head and walked off.

I was proud that my 12 yr.old pitcher handled his emotions the way he did, he was so focused that nothing could get him rattled that day,,,, and it was about that time that I decided one day I needed to get into umpiring....:supergrin