Tonight I’ve been assigned to umpire a couple baseball games with a partner who has been a little, umm, unpredictable lately. His ejection rate is impressive and his judgment call accuracy ranges from impressively precise to boneheadedly wrong. He can make the easiest calls looks difficult, and he can infuriate (and eject) a coach lickitysplit. Oh, and did I mention that he can even make his partner (me) look like an idiot by virtue of his bumblings?
In honor of my partner – and to help me remember while I’m on the field tonight that things could be worse – share with me your favorite “Stupidity in Sports” moments. I’m looking mainly for rule misinterpretations or misapplications, petty coaches or officials, moronic spectators and anything else that will give me a chuckle while I work with this guy.
I’ll get the ball rolling by telling a story once related to me in an umpire training course. Supposedly it’s true, but since I don’t remember any of the details, well, it kind of loses something, doesn’t it? It’s not about stupidity, necessarily, but it is about temporary lapses in judgment, and using creativity to get out of a jam. Here it is:
A big-time umpire, known to be fair and accurate, and also a great guy, is working at first base in a high-level baseball game. The weather is great, the game is rolling along…in short, it’s the perfect baseball evening. A batter hits a chopper to the third baseman, who fields it with a slight bobble and fires over to first. The batter’s hustle makes the play fairly close, but the first baseman clearly catches the ball half a step before the batter arrives. The umpire looks at the play and loudly yells “SAFE!” while extending his arms out to the side. The defense is shocked, and before the echo of the umpire’s call has faded out the defensive coach, who had been in the third base dugout, is already stomping onto the field.
“How can you possibly have called him safe, blue?! Everybody in this stadium could see he was out!”
The umpire knew he was wrong. He had made an error he hadn’t made in years – he rushed his call, and he got burned. But he also knew that reversing his call would set a dangerous precedent, and the offensive team would then come unglued. He thought quickly, looked the manager square in the eye and with a straight face he said:
“He touched the base with the wrong foot, skipper!”
The manager was disarmed, and he dropped his head and nodded as he turned to walk back to the dugout, knowing he had been wrong. He should’ve … hey, wait a second! It doesn’t matter what foot the fielder uses! He whipped back around to confront the umpire, who stood there stone-faced, completely unwavering. Again the umpire looked the manager square in the eye, and the umpire winked. A lightbulb went on. He knew the umpire screwed up, he knew the umpire knew, and he knew that putting up a fuss would get him nowhere. He had been had, fair and square. The manager trotted back to his dugout as he planned to give the umpire a good-natured talking-to after the game!