Iowa prep baseball umpire ejects ENTIRE crowd

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090613/SPORTS08/906130343&s=d&page=3#pluckcomments

I would have LOVED to see this. Hopefully someone filmed it and leaks it to a local TV station.

 

I was the PA announcer for a game where this happened in IN a few weeks ago. Ump basically got a burr up his @$$ after taking a pitch off the knee, having to warn pitchers for throwing at people, and having to restrain himself from tossing one of the coaches who was screaming at him. Two rivals, league title on the line, lots of emotions, a little sniping from the students in attendance at both each other and his crew, and he just got fed up. My PA job after having to inform everyone they'd been ordered to leave was to basically do play by play so the fans standing in the parking lot knew what was going on.

 

I refereed basketball for 37 years and I was tempted on at least a dozen occasions to do just this. But I nver actually pulled the trigger...

The closest I ever came to this was accidental. In a very big game between two excellent high school teams - one of which would go on to win the state championship that year - my partner and I were being dogged on every call by an elderly gent at the end of the home team's bench. He had a voice that could be heard two zip codes away.

Just before halftime, he took exception to a blocking/charging call and called me - in his very loud voice and with clear elocution - that magic twelve-letter word that begins with the letter "M" and rhymes with "chicken plucker". I teed him up and tossed him out of the gym.

He was the principal of that high school...

 

Todd Tichenor giggles.

 

Fixed, etc.

 

I have no doubt this was a severe overreaction on the umpire's part, but on the other hand, listening to crowds take their frustrations in life out on umpires and officials with disrespect they'd probably never display in a one-on-one conversation is really pathetic. It goes beyond garden-variety homerism into nonsensical invective that is socially accepted.

It's one reason why some associations are having trouble keeping officials' numbers up. The veteran officials I've talked to say crowd behavior is much worse now than its ever been. I wonder if we won't see situations like this more.

 

If you knew Todd Tichenor, you'd know ... aww, nevermind.

 

So Chef's real named is Don Briggs?

 

The head of a crew I was on had to toss the entire crowd at a basketball game in Montgomery years ago because a fight broke out in the stands and lasted about 20 minutes.

It spilled over onto the court, and a few players got involved. We wound up with about 11 total players and coaches left in the gym.

 

Sounds like more than a few players got involved...

 

I was trying to be nice.

 

could i get his phone number from you?