What an Ace!

We played his team tonight. He was my best friend when he traded me a helmet for one that I had been given that was broken. And still my best friend when he gave me a score book and when we swapped line ups.

We were in the last inning of the game when his team of girls in the dugout started screaming (just screaming) in unison at my pitcher. Their screams would get louder as her pitches went from wind up to delivery. Then they started chanting "Pitcher, pitcher, look at me, I'm a monkey in a tree."

I walked over to the ump and informed him that their team is not allowed to scream jeers at my pitcher. The ump agreed and told me to go tell the COACH!

HUH?

He said, "yeah, he's right there behind you..."

HUH? I am not supposed to reprimand the other coach, he is.

But, I obediently turned around and told Ace they weren't allowed to do that.

First, he denied that they were doing it, then he scoffed at me, rolled his eyes, and said,"Oh my HECK." but that's not what he said...

He was scoffing that I was making an issue of something he considered trivial. It's anything but trivial to me when a young girl has a crowd yelling at her, and she is trying to concentrate on pitching strikes in a close game.

He stormed over to his dugout to discuss it with the other coach.

In the meantime, the ump had gone over to the nice coach and told him to have them stop.

My pitcher struck out the next batter, and the game was over. We didn't get our last ups cause we were 2 points ahead. (We had lost a 7 point lead by making bad throws at base stealers.)

Gave low fives to the other team and the nice coach congratulated me with a handshake.
So the icky coach did too.

Then, the Ace of a coach was still fretting and denying his team had screamed and jeered at my pitcher. He thought it was juvenile that I would make a case of it. He told me that we're here to have fun and they are just a 12 yr old LL team. He said it again as I reminded him that it was in the rule book. Then he said it again with his hands in the air as he spun on his heels and walked away from me as I was still talking to him. (sort of like what you'd expect a girl to do when she shows you her hand, only there was no hand...just his back)

He was striding away as I yelled at him, "That's right, Ace, they are 12 yr old girls, and my 12 yr old pitcher doesn't need to be heckled by your team!"

EWWWWEEE! What an Ace!

And boy oh boy was the baseball/softball board gonna hear about this.

Wait, he IS the softball board!

As I was cleaning up my dugout and equipment, he appeared at the dugout fence, and said his girls HAD been yelling cheers at my pitcher and he apologized!!!!

Have you ever heard of a split personality? This has got to be one of those times.

I still went and told a friend of mine, who happens to be on the baseball board, about his horrid sportsmanship....

Now, for a funny gotcha.

Our game ended 5 minutes early. We have a rule that we can only score 5 runs per inning, but the last inning is open for as many as you can get. So, it has to be decided as the time winds down which inning will be the last one. The ump made a judgment call that this would be the last inning since they had just scored 5 runs and there was only 5 minutes left. Ace didn't like that call. ( My brother, the ump that got cancelled, said he would have kept playing, which means the other team could have had a chance to win.)

Another gotcha.

The other teams in my league had already warmed up to play next. They couldn't start their game cause the ump scheduled to do their game was still on the baseball field umping the baseball game.
You remember, the ump that got switched cause he was related to 4 people on my team...
Yeah, they switched Bruce from my game, and the baseball game he got switched to went 20 minutes long, so they shot themselves in the foot and had to wait 30 minutes for him to get done before they could play the next softball game.

Yeah, kinda funny.

Stay tuned, I'm sure there'll be more....

Good news: Kinzie played catcher for one inning for the first time, and she did fabulous!  I was so proud of her.