Bad umpires aren’t going away, so you have to learn to deal with them.
Every six months or so, an article is published that tries to make us feel sorry for umpires. The latest was: Youth Sports Referees are Quitting in Droves Due to a Toxic Combination of Abuse from Coaches and Parents, Low Salaries, and COVID-19 (Business Insider, 15 Aug. 2021).
I can’t speak to baseball at the high school-level, but I’ve been involved with youth baseball for over five years now and I’ve yet to see any abuse of the kind described in these stories. People can get on umpires, but it’s mostly feckless chirping.
Ironically, the closest I’ve come to seeing an actual fistfight was when two umpires nearly came to blows on a 50-70 field after one felt slighted thinking the other had stolen his call to make.
God bless the good umpires, and I’m in no way defending abusive coaches or parents, but I’d once like to see an article on how the quality of umpiring has deteriorated significantly over the past decade.
Here are some helpful tips for dealing with bad umpires.
Try Diplomacy with Other Coach to Combat Teenaged Umpires in Little League
When I played Little League in the 80s, the umpires were grown men. Often they had white hair and looked like my grandfather.
Today, my town’s Little League employs 14-year old kids as umpires, and the only training they receive is a 90-minute “info session” with one of the board members. The results are horrific.
They’re always out of position. Blown calls are the norm. Some have the tightest strike zones you could imagine, with youngsters just learning to pitch. The umpires are easily swayed by loudmouth coaches. If you criticize them, you’ll get in trouble with their mothers (no joke!).
For all the handwringing over why American kids are souring on baseball, maybe a good place to start the inquiry is when the Little Leagues removed the elder statesmen from the field and replaced them with Justin Bieber.
Enter into a Non-Aggression Pact with Other Coach to Combat Bad Umpires
The only way around the boy umpires is to make an agreement with the opposing coach before the game that you’ll overrule the umpire on clearly erroneous calls.
If both coaches agree that a call is wrong, the kid umpire will generally go along and change the call.
This fix is not ideal but it’s really the only option.
Talk to Umpires Quietly Between Innings to Air Complaints
An umpire just blew a call at home costing your team a crucial run. Your pitcher is being squeezed unmercifully after the opposing pitcher was given strikes a foot off the plate. The shortstop covering second clearly missed the tag but your runner is called out.
You want to yell and scream. Unfortunately it’s not going to do you any good, because the ump’s not going to change the call.
The best thing you can do for your team is keep quiet in the moment and instead engage the umpire softly between innings and make your case.
Most umpires will appreciate your not showing them up and will at least listen to you.
If Multiple Umpires, Try Appealing to Reasonable One
If one umpire is bad, sometimes his partner will be more reasonable. If that’s the case, make inroads with the reasonable one so that he can make your case to his colleague.
For example, we were playing a game last year during the pandemic, and our travel league had a rule requiring all coaches to wear masks. Our coach refused to wear one, and the umpire and coach got into a heated exchange.
The umpire could have tossed our coach right there, or disqualified our team, but he instead called the game wildly against us. We wound up appealing to the second umpire, and he overruled his colleague many times over the course of the game. However, we still lost on a bad call.
Ask Travel League Not to Assign Particular Umpires to Your Games
We’d be naive to think that “homer” umpires, who use their powers to tilt the scales in favor of one team, only existed in the movies.
Umpires develop favoritism for a particular team, because, for example, they’ve known the coaches for years and are drinking buddies. Also, an umpire might do a lot of games for a particular town and start to favor the local teams, either because he wants to continue doing games for that town or because he starts feeling a hometown connection to them.
The umpire might not even be aware of his bias, and the favoritism can all be happening on the unconscious level.
What to Do if Umpires Favor the Other Team
Try to reach out to other coaches and parents in your area to form a defacto network for local baseball information. This is good for many things, and it will help you find out if there are umpires out there who favor certain teams. With this information, you can try going to your league and requesting that those umpires not officiate your games.
You can also try videoing the game and later sending examples of the blown calls to the league. My son was once called out on strikes on a pitch so outside the catcher had to to dive to stop the ball. Luckily, one of the parents had taken amazing behind-the-plate video of the call, which we forward on to the league. The league never assigned that umpire to one of our games again.
DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR DEALING WITH BAD UMPIRES? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.
For more information about the emotional side of baseball, see:
- Anger Management and Youth Baseball: How to Calm Down
- How to Manage Your Kid’s Baseball Tantrums and Meltdowns
- 5 Ways Youth Baseball Teams Cheat, and How to Respond
- How to Stop Being a Crazy Baseball Dad
- How to Be a Good Baseball Dad in the Backyard
- Is It Now Fashionable to Hate On Baseball Dads?
For information on hitting, see:
- How to Get Out of a Hitting Slump
- 4 Best Baseball Batting Aids (No. 3 is Free)
- 4 Hitting Drills You Need to Do Before Every Game
- 4 Old School Baseball Drills You Need to Be Using
For information on pitching, see:
You’re completely missing the boat. There are always going.to.be bad umpires, but the reason there are so many at this point is because the good ones are leaving. The article you mentioned is spot on, the “older guys” aren’t getting paid enough for the parents and coaches that think it is their right to verbally, and sometimes physically attack umpires.
You mention in one of your sections that local leagues are getting rid of the older guys and replacing them with the younger guys. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The older guys are leaving because we don’t know how to act as parents and coaches. They don’t want to put up with it, so leagues have to resort to younger and younger kids each year.
Also, agreeing as coaches to override the umpires when they get it wrong? I’m sorry, but that’s complete bullshit. If you don’t like the quality of umpires, maybe do something to make them better! Volunteer at the league level to provide the additional training that’s needed since you seem to know how to umpire. Hell, sign up to umpire yourself.
Also, be careful asking a travel league to not assign you certain umpires. With shortages of officials in all sports, there might not be any other options available for your scheduled game day and time.
Think about more than yourself and your team. None of these suggestions actually help fix the issues with umpires, and in most cases will end up making it worse.
My first responsibility as head coach is to make sure none of my players are losing their cool, and finding themselves getting tossed. If I’m emotional, the players will follow suit. Many umpires and officials in other sports, at the travel level, are leaving because the abuse they receive, especially behind the chain-link. Baseball has so many plays (pitches really) that it is humanly impossible to satisfy both sides, with the absolute perfect call. Sandlot games with 2 umpires, is better, but being out of position ( and that is when you can correctly tell an umpire he ‘blew the call’) is part of the bargain. My only point that I ever spoke to multiple umpires about was it’s imperative as a coach to have the team practice and to practice fixing mistakes, made in the game. How come umpires don’t practice? At least once or twice a month, meet and go over mistakes and what’s trending.