So I have a little project I’m working on (I’m over 50, this is not school work) and I’m looking for funny umpire or coaching stories to get my creative juices flowing. Preferably something from youth sports. I’ll share a couple that I know and hopefully some of you have one or two stories or jokes that you can share.
In a youth baseball game the catcher give a signal to the pitcher. The pitcher shakes it off. The catcher gives another signal and the pitcher shakes that one off as well. This happens two more times when the coach yells from the dugout, “Dang it, Jimmy you’ve shaken off 4 pitches, and you only know how to throw 2 pitches! Throw the damn ball!”
The umpire working behind home plate calls a ball on a check swing. The catcher asks the ump to go for help on the check swing because he thinks it was a strike. The plate umpire yells down to his partner “Did he swing?” and the base umpire signals a strike and says “no. but it caught the corner!”
That second one is a hilarious umpire joke by the way. However I don’t think anyone outside of the umpire community ever think it’s funny.
I recall seeing Billy Martin on The Tonight Show years and years ago telling an extremely funny story to Johnny. I’ll be damned if I can remember it, but it was a classic. Something about Yogi Berra, a farmer and a horse that got shot. I can’t search YouTube here and I have no idea if it would even be on YouTube.
I was coaching my son’s team in a league which doesn’t keep score. Another coach asked me what time it was. I replied, “5 to 7”. On the way home my son started crying. I asked him what was wrong and he said, “I’m sad because we lost.” I asked him why he thought that we lost and he said that he heard me tell the other coach that the score was 5 to 7. OK, understandable confusion, but why did he assume that we lost? Why didn’t he assume that we won?
The 1962 Mets are filled with funny stories - the most famous probably involving Richie Ashburn. Ashburn was at the tail end of his Hall of fame career, and played center for the Mets. The shortstop was Elio Chacon, who hailed from Venezuela, and didn’t speak much English at all. Ashburn, after several collisions with Chacon, who couldn’t understand Ashburn was calling for the ball, got a Spanish speaking teammate to teach him to say ‘Yo lo tengo!’ which is Spanish for 'I’ve got it!"
So, the next time a short flyball was hit into no man’s land, Ashburn comes racing in shouting ‘Yo lo tengo!’ and Chacon gets out of the way, and Ashburn is promptly run over by Frank Howard, the left fielder, who doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish.
This story was told at an umpire school I attended.
Umpire calls strike 2. The batter insinuating that the ball was outside, takes his bat and draws a line in the dirt about 6 inches outside home plate. The next pitch is about two feet high of the strike zone. Of course the umpire rings the batter up. When he goes to argue the call, the ump yells, “try to draw a fucking line up there.”
This one happened to me. I was umpiring a game and having a real struggle. My strike zone was all over the place and I had blew a call at home plate. The crowd was giving it to me pretty good and one guy who had a booming voice was just killing me. Later in the game, I got a foul ball that went dirt first and then straight into my groin. I instantly went into the fetal position. Crowd goes wild of course, except booming voice guy, who I hear yelling, “Ughhhhhhh, this umps shitty, but even he doesn’t deserve that.”
Julie Wera, who had been Joe Dugan’s backup on the '27 Yankees, was playing third for the San Francisco Seals when they were trying out a nervous seventeen-year-old at Short. After the youngster lobbed a throw to first, Wera yelled for him to throw harder. The shortstop’s next throw landed in the grandstand.
The shortstop was future Hall of Fame centerfielder Joe DiMaggio.
Because when you announce a score, you always announce your score first. Like in volleyball 5 serving 7. So since you said 5 to 7, he assumed that the 5 was your score and the 7 was their score.
At least, this was how I was always taught to tell scores when I was little, and I would’ve made the same mistake.
We always say the higher score first and say who’s ahead (unless it’s a tie, of course). “7 to 5, us” or “7 to 5, them” or “We’re down 7 to 5” or “They’re winning 7 to 5” or a million other variations which always have the higher score first. Sportscasters tend to do this too (though I have heard exceptions, which I recall because they’re so jarring) so I don’t think it’s a regional thing. The only exception I can think of which is acceptable is “Yankees 3, Red Sox 21” but even then I would prefer it the other way around.
Oh absolutely, if you have other qualifying words, it makes a difference. But without any other words, if you were announcing a score I would assume you were saying yours first.
Yankees 7, Redsox 5 gets rid of any ambiguity, but if you were a Yankee and said 7 to 5, I would get the same understanding.
My father used to umpire local parks and recreation softball games for extra money. One weekend he was umpiring a tournament that ran all day. One of the games was between two teams that were deaf and mute. As he bent over home plate to broom it off, his pants split. Both teams began gesturing wildly and laughing, but no sound was coming out of their mouths. He had to finish umpiring the game before he could run home and change pants. He was absolutely mortified!
I wish I could remember the rookie pitcher whom I saw interviewed back in the 80s. He was asked “Now that you’re in the big leagues, do you fantasize about getting the start in a game 7 of the World Series?” He replied “When I fantasize, it’s about Cybill Shepherd.”
My point is that sports scores are never said without the qualifying words. If I ask you the score and you say “7 to 5” I don’t know who’s winning. There is no assumption that I will say “my” team’s score first because I may not have a team or you may not know what my team is. Say that we’re both watching a baseball game. I don’t know who you’re rooting for and you don’t know who I’m rooting for. If you ask me the score and I say “7 to 5” you don’t know which team is winning because you don’t know which team is my team or whether I even have a team. I might just like to watch baseball no matter who is playing. The only time you say a score without qualifying it is when it’s a tie.
I was coaching T-ball (so 5, 6 year olds). It’s the last game of the season, last inning. We’re in the field, including coaches who get to stand out there with the kids (much easier to stand right next to Billy and yell the ball, you need to go get the ball).
I’m out in left field, the games almost over and I look over at the left fielder, who has his zipper down and is bouncing his penis up and down in his hand.
They don’t cover this scenario in the coach’s booklet you get at the beginning of the season. I blurted out “Put that thing away.” And as soon as he did the game ended and I tried to make it through the post game pizza party without laughing my ass off.