Iowa prep baseball umpire ejects ENTIRE crowd

I did this on one occasion during my umpiring days, and nearly did it again. I also knew of other umpires I worked with who also did it. And where I umpired, 100 fans at a game was really no big deal.

 

In MONTGOMERY? Naw...

 

Carver-Lee game.

 

Complete overreaction.

 

Agree, Sam. The day I feel the need to throw a member of the crowd out is the day I'll hang it up. Your job is to officiate the action and keep the participants in line, not have both ears and what is left of your oversensitive ego on the other side of the lines.

RB

 

A crowd can, and does, incite the participants sometimes though. I've seen it more than once.

 

And then Chef cut off his right thumb and threw it into the crowd to signify they were outta here. The end.

 

Ridiculous overreaction.

I could see ejecting a coach or an unruly fan, but the entire crowd? Are you out of your mind?

 

As I said before, there are times when it's necessary to clear out a ball field or gym. In the case I did it, I had parents at both sides screaming obscenities not only at the players, coaches and me, but at each other. A similar situation while I was in high school led to a three-person shooting after a football game.
While you don't ever think that sort of thing is going to happen, you just never know these days.

 

Unless the school that he works at is named after him, I really hope you contacted the School Board on him.

 

93 Devil:

I didn't really have to do that. My referee's association head was at the game - - remember, one of these teams was the eventual state champ and this was a game that had been hyped for several weeks.

He sent a letter to the school - and to the county officials - stating that there would be no referees for any games involving that school - home or away - if that person were on the bench. (Remember, I thought he was an assistant coach or trainer or something like that because he was at the end of the bench.) That was as far as his "refereeing threat" could go; obviously, if the guy showed up at an away game and bought a ticket and sat in the nosebleed seats, there wan't anything to be done.

He also sent a letter to the local papers one of which ran with the story and the school authroities handled this very effectively. He was no problem for any officials for several years after that incident - - and then he retired.

 

I'm not saying an umpire should never eject the entire crowd. Believe me, I'm not. I'm not saying your situation didn't merit clearing out a crowd.

I'm saying in THIS case, it was ridiculous. And that's as an umpire myself.