Conflict Mediation in High Intensity, High Emotion Competitive Situations

Umpiring’s been going well.  I’m working less than I have in years past, which is a good thing, but I’m still over 50 games for the year already.  It’s been a good balance.  With the school season over, we’re into the (generally) much lower key rec season where games matter a whole lot less to everyone, and with that the baseball definitely goes downhill a little as well. 

Anyways, I was working with a guy the other day who had just graduated from college, and was still looking for a job and umpiring in the meantime (much like I did after graduation).  He cracked me up when he said he put umpiring on his resume as “Conflict mediation in high intensity, high emotion competitive situations.”  While that’s actually a pretty accurate description, it just reeks of resume BS in a way that’s spectacular. 

Last night I worked a game where that description was more applicable than usual.  It was a 45 and up mens league game.  In the third inning Team A started complaining that Team B had an illegal player.  Apparently Team B didn’t think they were going to have enough people so they got a sub to come in, which is allowed.  But then Team B’s 9^th guy was able to make it, so now they had 10, which Team A claimed was not allowed.  Pretty soon the coaches were yelling at each other, trying to call two different league commissioners who each thought would side with them, and 20 people are standing around waiting to start playing again.  Trying to get between them was pointless.  Eventually Team A gave up and said they would play on, but protest the game afterwards, so we continued. 

Then in the 6^th inning this giant brutish asshole didn’t like that I called two strikes on him.  The first one might have been a little low, but it was a crap game so every other batter was walking and I was trying to open it up.  The second one was a beautiful curve that went from the bottom of the letters on the inside corner to belt high over the center of the plate.  Strangely, the second one pissed him off more than the first, and he started bitching, calling me terrible and asking how badly I wanted to go home.  Often people like to think all we want to do is call outs so that the game is over and we can go home, but given that we had 4 innings and 20 minutes left on the timelimit I questioned his logic in this situation. 

I warned him, and he shut up for a pitch, but when I called the next pitch a ball, (an extremely high outside pitch) he gave me a “oh I guess you have some limits look” and started to open his mouth to be an asshole again.  I should have ejected him then and there, but instead I cut him off and warned his bench that anything else and I would start throwing people out.  The next pitch he whiffed with a hilariously overdone swing for strike three, and the pitcher (who knew both strike calls were justified) just started laughing at him. 

He looked ready to charge the mound, but again I cut him off and ordered him back to the dugout.  He glared at me loathingly (again I should have tossed him) but stalked off.  He proceeded to glare at me (I think he thought he was threatening) every time he ran on and off the field the rest of the game.  I regretted not tossing him, but he didn’t give me an excuse for the rest of the game.  The rest of the team had been fine before that, but they started to get a little chatty from there out.  When they blew their lead in the bottom of the 8^th (the last inning because of the time limit) they really started to go off, but fortunately we were done and just got out of there. 

All in all I thought it was some great conflict mediation in a high intensity, high emotion competitive situation.