Umpire hits player during coed softball game

A night of fun dampend not by rain but by injury

Life is full of obstacles, hurdles, and danger; even when you are inside your home, you think you are safe; however, we know that not to be true — people do get hurt at home; so it comes as no surprise that injuries happen outside the home while you are driving, walking, working, or what ever activity you are doing including playing softball.

Injuries occur while executing routine plays in softball/baseball.

• Running — the most basic, simple, and easy thing to do (for most people) that is required in most sports, yet it is the activity that scores the most injuries that can easily be avoided.
  Stretch, Warm up, and Hydrate.
• Sliding into a base is an activity mostly common in baseball/softball that records many injuries, but is the highest on the list for comedy when you watch players that do not know how to slide — apologies for those that get hurt, but some of your slides are too darn funny not too laugh.
  Wear proper baseball/softball clothing, practice sliding because, sliding is required when going into second, third, and sometimes home — there is no sliding at home in Coed.
• Diving for a ball may sometimes cause some discomfort to a player — a player broke his wrist going for a ball in the outfield in the Spring of 2016.
• Colliding into another player
  • … while going for a ball.
    Please call for the ball, please listen for someone calling the ball then back off. Real ballplayers know who the better player is, and also, who is in the better position to catch the ball to know when to back off and avoid a collision.
  • … while making a play at a base.
    runner should be sliding if there is a play at the base, and the defender should NOT be on the base but near it. If there is no play at the base, the defender should stay clear of the bag so the runner does not collide into the defender.
  • … while going after a thrown ball while a runner is approaching.
    I see this play after play after play. The first baseman is stretching for a ball that was POORLY thrown and running into the runner.
    It starts with the player making that throw, if the player cannot throw it to the target, the player should NOT be making that throw.
    The runner has the right to that line and path to the base. The player to be penalized would be the player who made the throw.
• Tossing/Throwing a bat to a player, which happens often, but injuries are rare.
  I have handed the bat to the player ever since I began umpiring back in 1978. The bat is the biggest weapon on the field; I am not going to just toss it to a player and hope they catch it; there is so much that could go wrong — when I am on a team it is a different situation.
• Catching a hit ball is not as easy as it looks — most players know this; it is coming fast and hard, spinning, bouncing across the unleveled, scattered with rocks ground, all it needs to do is catch any one of those to cause it to change directions away from the defender or into their legs, chest, or worse, their face.

Players expect and anticipate that at any moment they can get injured executing an one of the above common baseball/softball activities, but not when time has been called and during the transfer of the ball from men's to women's — NO WAY!

I did not think it would ever happen — what umpire does? Umpiring over 1500 games since 1978, I have been the most careful, caring, and thoughtful person/umpire I could be (Remember, I HAND the bats to the player, I do not toss them).

So, during the ROUTINE act of switching balls I looked at the pitcher, Nick Sacco (a great guy - nice - friendly) of Gary's Place, who I swear nodded to me, I toss the ball to him and at a point I realized he was not following the ball as he looked away toward the dugout and to the ground, i began yelling “NICK, NICK NIIIIICK!” Which a that point I was running toward him as I knew it was going to hit as soon as he looked up, it was too late. My heart sank.

I, an umpire, a man of honor, faith, and love hit and hurt a player. My perfect caring record broken. But it was not about me, it was about Nick, was he okay? It was an accident, a simple miscommunication, a lack of experience as I thought I knew his signals.

This is not the first time I almost hit a pitcher; most of them either quickly looked up because they were listening to me, or were not in the area the ball was tossed to as they were moving; not out of the way, but moving in general that the ball just missed them.

No. I am not pointing any fingers at or blaming Nick for the incident. After much thought on it, I realized that the previous play was a muff, by him, and so he was trying to shake it off because, he was upset with himself — hmmm… Doing what most players do after they make an error. The last thing they want to happen is to get hit above the eye by a ball for no reason.

In my defense, which there is not much, I was trying to help him move the game along so the team could get another at bat as the time was running down. So when I saw him look at me while I had the ball in the air in my hand ready to toss, it looked like he nodded toward me as, “go ahead, toss the ball.” I read that wrong!

It was an accident that I feel real bad about. This is the first season I have umpired Gary's Place, and I have nothing against the team or Nick, or any player for that matter. An accident that should not have happened. I am surprised it took this long to happen; I am sorry that it was Nick it happened too, he was in a zone that I misread.

Will it happen again? I pray not. Will there be close ones? I am sure there will be. Will this effect my willingness to hurry a game along so a team gets another at bat? We will see.