agsalaska said:
OK it is story time for Agsalaska. I may have told this story before but if so it was a few years ago. And, for the record I have been pretty clear on this thread that our teams have zero tolerance for any harassment of umpires by anyone and we do not even complain in any way about bad calls in front of the kids. We are an umpire's wet dream(that's not to say we do not chirp a little, appeal calls, etc. We just do it with respect). We respect umpires.
However,
I was suspended one game in the TTAB District T-ball tournament several years ago for an altercation with an umpire. I have never in my life seen another human being act this way in person on a ball field of any kind. It was our team and another team from our town and two local umpires. All coaches are friends. All the kids are friends. All the wives are friends. etc. And familiar umpires. What could go wrong.
One umpire went wrong. I can't really put into words how bad he was to both coaches the entire game but it was like R Lee Ermey in his Full Metal Jacket character doing a t ball game and everyone was Private Pyle. And without going into details about individual calls, it culminated in him throwing a bat helicopter style at me as I was walking back to the 3rd base dugout with my player who had just grounded out(who still plays for me.) I looked up in time to see the bat about six feet away from me and caught it about six inches from the little boys face. I caught the umpire's eye as he walked away with this **** eating F you grin on his face.
If I had it over again we would not have taken the field, but it was the last half inning and I was frozen by the shock of it. The game ended like one run later or something and I walked up to the other umpire to ask him if so and so was in charge of umpires this week so I could try to keep the bad umpire off the field. Bad umpire hears this and literally charges me chest out like some badass rooster. In the exchange which I quickly walked away from I cursed, pretty sure it was an S word.
By the time I got to the directors he had reported my foul language. But it didn't take long for the entire story to come out. The coaches on the other team didn't see it, but the coaches waiting on our field did as did about ten parents, some of whom were lined up behind me to tell what they saw. By the next morning the TTAB home office had received several calls and emails about it, many from people I didnt know.
It ended with me serving a one game mandatory suspension because I cursed. The umpire was banned from league play for life. The two teams and coaches involved ended up combining to make the Select team my son plays on today, and I still coach many of the boys in league too. The other umpire is a good dude and called a game for us the other night. Yes, he made a few calls I disagreed with. No I didn't give him any grief. He is a good umpire.
Not sure of the moral to that story and I am not telling it in any defense of this waco coach from Abilene. But, like any other profession, there is such a thing as umpires that should not be allowed around children, coaches, or frankly anyone else. But the story is somewhat of a legend around here and I get constantly harassed about it. Even last weekend when the umpire made a bad call one of the coaches said 'Hey Agsalaska go talk to him about it' and the story was told to some opponent coaches at the bar that night.
wood bat tournament for eleven year olds?TarponChaser said:docb said:
Interesting no one's posted anything about kid's jumping ship to another team or parents getting into squabbles yet. I guess most posters kids are still young on this thread. Just wait……..
Maybe the guys on here attempt to specifically seek out teams/organizations which keep such to a minimum.
I know when my oldest was trying out for 12U teams back in the fall some parents from a local team were trying to get him to try out for their team. We'd met a few of the parents playing in the Middle School Matchup which had kids from his MS on this team. He also had some kids from the team attending the same speed & agility workouts. Anyway, some of the parents of this team were trying to convince me to bring my kid to their team by badmouthing other teams we were checking out and at the same time they were *****ing about both some of the kids on the Middle School Matchup team and the guy who volunteered to coach that team. They were immediately crossed off the list.
Same goes for another squad. My boy picked up in a wood bat tournament the weekend before Thanksgiving with an 11U AA team from Dynasty. Really it's the worst 11U squad they have but my kid had taken all fall off from baseball to play football and hadn't seen live pitching or been in the field since June so I figured it would be a good re-entry. Anyway, one of the squads I was looking into to have him try out was a team we ended up playing for the championship. Their parents were garbage- talking **** TO the kids and just really trashy. Plus, there were several times I saw kids on the field throw tantrums- throwing gloves, helmets, etc. One kid who was playing SS couldn't make the play on hard grounder in the hole- it was a tough play to his backhand side. There were runners on base and when he missed the backhand and the ball went into left he threw his glove on the ground, started pouting and kicking it all while the opponents kids were still running the bases. And the coach let it continue and didn't do ***** I immediately crossed them off the list of potential spots too.
PhatMack19 said:
We are Piranhas which Jason Tyner runs.
AustinCountyAg said:wood bat tournament for eleven year olds?TarponChaser said:docb said:
Interesting no one's posted anything about kid's jumping ship to another team or parents getting into squabbles yet. I guess most posters kids are still young on this thread. Just wait……..
Maybe the guys on here attempt to specifically seek out teams/organizations which keep such to a minimum.
I know when my oldest was trying out for 12U teams back in the fall some parents from a local team were trying to get him to try out for their team. We'd met a few of the parents playing in the Middle School Matchup which had kids from his MS on this team. He also had some kids from the team attending the same speed & agility workouts. Anyway, some of the parents of this team were trying to convince me to bring my kid to their team by badmouthing other teams we were checking out and at the same time they were *****ing about both some of the kids on the Middle School Matchup team and the guy who volunteered to coach that team. They were immediately crossed off the list.
Same goes for another squad. My boy picked up in a wood bat tournament the weekend before Thanksgiving with an 11U AA team from Dynasty. Really it's the worst 11U squad they have but my kid had taken all fall off from baseball to play football and hadn't seen live pitching or been in the field since June so I figured it would be a good re-entry. Anyway, one of the squads I was looking into to have him try out was a team we ended up playing for the championship. Their parents were garbage- talking **** TO the kids and just really trashy. Plus, there were several times I saw kids on the field throw tantrums- throwing gloves, helmets, etc. One kid who was playing SS couldn't make the play on hard grounder in the hole- it was a tough play to his backhand side. There were runners on base and when he missed the backhand and the ball went into left he threw his glove on the ground, started pouting and kicking it all while the opponents kids were still running the bases. And the coach let it continue and didn't do ***** I immediately crossed them off the list of potential spots too.
are you ****ting me? Travel baseball tournament directors have suburb baseball parents by the balls. $$$ Anything to get little Ayden ready for "the show".
AustinCountyAg said:agsalaska said:
OK it is story time for Agsalaska. I may have told this story before but if so it was a few years ago. And, for the record I have been pretty clear on this thread that our teams have zero tolerance for any harassment of umpires by anyone and we do not even complain in any way about bad calls in front of the kids. We are an umpire's wet dream(that's not to say we do not chirp a little, appeal calls, etc. We just do it with respect). We respect umpires.
However,
I was suspended one game in the TTAB District T-ball tournament several years ago for an altercation with an umpire. I have never in my life seen another human being act this way in person on a ball field of any kind. It was our team and another team from our town and two local umpires. All coaches are friends. All the kids are friends. All the wives are friends. etc. And familiar umpires. What could go wrong.
One umpire went wrong. I can't really put into words how bad he was to both coaches the entire game but it was like R Lee Ermey in his Full Metal Jacket character doing a t ball game and everyone was Private Pyle. And without going into details about individual calls, it culminated in him throwing a bat helicopter style at me as I was walking back to the 3rd base dugout with my player who had just grounded out(who still plays for me.) I looked up in time to see the bat about six feet away from me and caught it about six inches from the little boys face. I caught the umpire's eye as he walked away with this **** eating F you grin on his face.
If I had it over again we would not have taken the field, but it was the last half inning and I was frozen by the shock of it. The game ended like one run later or something and I walked up to the other umpire to ask him if so and so was in charge of umpires this week so I could try to keep the bad umpire off the field. Bad umpire hears this and literally charges me chest out like some badass rooster. In the exchange which I quickly walked away from I cursed, pretty sure it was an S word.
By the time I got to the directors he had reported my foul language. But it didn't take long for the entire story to come out. The coaches on the other team didn't see it, but the coaches waiting on our field did as did about ten parents, some of whom were lined up behind me to tell what they saw. By the next morning the TTAB home office had received several calls and emails about it, many from people I didnt know.
It ended with me serving a one game mandatory suspension because I cursed. The umpire was banned from league play for life. The two teams and coaches involved ended up combining to make the Select team my son plays on today, and I still coach many of the boys in league too. The other umpire is a good dude and called a game for us the other night. Yes, he made a few calls I disagreed with. No I didn't give him any grief. He is a good umpire.
Not sure of the moral to that story and I am not telling it in any defense of this waco coach from Abilene. But, like any other profession, there is such a thing as umpires that should not be allowed around children, coaches, or frankly anyone else. But the story is somewhat of a legend around here and I get constantly harassed about it. Even last weekend when the umpire made a bad call one of the coaches said 'Hey Agsalaska go talk to him about it' and the story was told to some opponent coaches at the bar that night.
cool story and all, BUT what I took away from this was your kid was playing in a T BALL TOURNAMENT? and said game required TWO umpires?
Surely this is a joke?
Retired umpire here. I spent nearly 20 years as an umpire, starting as a Little League and ended umpiring NCAA Div 1.agsalaska said:
It ended with me serving a one game mandatory suspension because I cursed. The umpire was banned from league play for life.
Considering that was your takeaway from my story you obviously made the right decision to retire. We thank you.Joe Schillaci 48 said:Retired umpire here. I spent nearly 20 years as an umpire, starting as a Little League and ended umpiring NCAA Div 1.agsalaska said:
It ended with me serving a one game mandatory suspension because I cursed. The umpire was banned from league play for life.
There is nothing worse than being sentenced to do a youth baseball game. As I entered my 50's I realized the game had passed me by at the college level and my choice was to umpire youth baseball, lower level high school baseball or retire.
The decision was a no brainer. Why anyone would want to put up with parents and possible physical harm is beyond me. In high school (and college) coaches can "scratch" an umpire but the umpire can "scratch" them too. I have been scratched and I have scratched coaches.
And the umpire who was "banned for life" from some youth league? He probably had 20 phone calls begging him to work a tournament in the league down the street.
I hope he turned them all down and went fishing that weekend.
docb said:
Our team got second place for the second week in a row. Ended up losing by 2 to a Canes team that had brought in 5 players for Sunday. They had around 14-15 kids on that bench. A few questions that I've always wanted to know and never gotten a good answer from the guys that run the Austin select baseball. How many kids that currently play majors can drop down to a AAA team to play in a tournament? I mean we are AAA so we can't (and would not) drop down to a AA tournament just to pick up a $3 gold ring. So what is the difference if you just bring several kids from other higher level teams. We have sent e-mails to the tournament directors before but honestly I think they turn a blind eye because those large organizations are paying a lot of entry fees every weekend. I guess I don't see what the point of having classification if there is no enforcement of it? Frankly I'd be pissed if my kid was on that team and was having to sit on Sundays because they were brining kids down of cherry picking from the other teams in the organization just to collect rings. It was a lot easier to navigate the USSSA website and see all the teams these kids are currently on. The Perfect Game website is harder to navigate IMO. And if these are Perfect Game tournaments is that the rules we follow then where are they published. I was looking last night for the rules on their website and I couldn't find anything on there. I'm pretty sure the USSSA website had a rules section. Anyway I guess at the end of the day our kids get to play the whole game and we don't have to stack rosters from other teams to get there.
Yea we are independent too. We get approached almost every weekend. Started in 7u after the t-ball season and still have 7 of the original boys who also played t ball.docb said:
I wish we had another option in the Austin area. It's not that we are not competitive as we win our fair share of games and tournaments. I'm fairly proud of our boys as we have done this since 9U and now 14U and we are pretty much the only independent team left. Not too bad for a few dads doing this the old way.
agsalaska said:Yea we are independent too. We get approached almost every weekend. Started in 7u after the t-ball season and still have 7 of the original boys who also played t ball.docb said:
I wish we had another option in the Austin area. It's not that we are not competitive as we win our fair share of games and tournaments. I'm fairly proud of our boys as we have done this since 9U and now 14U and we are pretty much the only independent team left. Not too bad for a few dads doing this the old way.
My son could play majors. But some of our boys probably can't. But why would I pull him and send him to Austin to play majors at 10 years old when he has grown up with these kids. Seems a little young for that. We had one boy do exactly that but they were back very quickly and dad was like 'ain't doing that again.'
USSSA has moved back into the area a little bit north in Bell Co. We are playing there at the end of May. But I am not sure what 14u looks like.
We played a couple of NCS tournaments in the fall in Temple and unfortunately it just wasnt competitive enough. We also played two in 9u and same thing though those were in the Dallas and SA area. I think in the four we played we won three and came in second once, never losing a pool game.TarponChaser said:agsalaska said:Yea we are independent too. We get approached almost every weekend. Started in 7u after the t-ball season and still have 7 of the original boys who also played t ball.docb said:
I wish we had another option in the Austin area. It's not that we are not competitive as we win our fair share of games and tournaments. I'm fairly proud of our boys as we have done this since 9U and now 14U and we are pretty much the only independent team left. Not too bad for a few dads doing this the old way.
My son could play majors. But some of our boys probably can't. But why would I pull him and send him to Austin to play majors at 10 years old when he has grown up with these kids. Seems a little young for that. We had one boy do exactly that but they were back very quickly and dad was like 'ain't doing that again.'
USSSA has moved back into the area a little bit north in Bell Co. We are playing there at the end of May. But I am not sure what 14u looks like.
I'm not sure where the dividing line is but it seems like a lot more Cen-Tex and North Texas plays NCS-sanctioned events and maybe even some USSSA still while around B/CS and points south is almost all PG.
docb said:
All of 14U is on the big field
agsalaska said:
Also, Tarpon again, we went to B/CS this weekend and played USSSA. Could have used another competitive team or two but the Semis and the Final were great games.
And the field in Bryan was fantastic.
agsalaska said:
Also, Tarpon, I am not to the 14u yet(still 10u) but I have never heard the argument of eliminating age divisions at 14u. Interesting idea.
Seems like that would eliminate all the independent teams by 14u and give the advantage immediately to the factories. That would probably even effect 12u and 13u.
For example if our independent team made it all the way to 14u what happens then? Do we go recruit older kids? Do we just hang out for a year or two in AA? I guess by then a lot of these boys will be moving on from Select ball and doing something else anyway.
But from a competition standpoint that might not be the worst thing.
I think it depends entirely on what your goals are. Does he have to quit rec ball? Some rec coaches put weekend teams together. Do you want him playing majors or is having fun still a top priority?lil99chris said:
Alright……my son is currently playing 10U. We have stuck around with rec league/all stars instead of joining an organization over the past few years. In the past he has been asked to join teams, but we have turned down offers due to other commitments, wanting to play with friends, and I honestly enjoy coaching. When looking at organizations, how much of a factor should I really pay toward a paid coach, dad coach, or volunteer coached team?
This is exactly the route I plan to go, My son is currently 7 playing 8u. Plan is to stay in league next spring for 9u and probably next spring for 10u, trying out for their majors teams in the league. After that maybe do summer 10u on a select team and figure it out from therelil99chris said:
Alright……my son is currently playing 10U. We have stuck around with rec league/all stars instead of joining an organization over the past few years. In the past he has been asked to join teams, but we have turned down offers due to other commitments, wanting to play with friends, and I honestly enjoy coaching. When looking at organizations, how much of a factor should I really pay toward a paid coach, dad coach, or volunteer coached team?
We are likely going to consider also playing rec ball in the fall/spring. We also understand rec league is not going to really give my son and his buddy the challenge they require. I grew up playing baseball with my neighborhood friends and loved it. Select baseball was not really an option when I played.agsalaska said:I think it depends entirely on what your goals are. Does he have to quit rec ball? Some rec coaches put weekend teams together. Do you want him playing majors or is having fun still a top priority?lil99chris said:
Alright……my son is currently playing 10U. We have stuck around with rec league/all stars instead of joining an organization over the past few years. In the past he has been asked to join teams, but we have turned down offers due to other commitments, wanting to play with friends, and I honestly enjoy coaching. When looking at organizations, how much of a factor should I really pay toward a paid coach, dad coach, or volunteer coached team?
There are a lot of good organizations out there.
