Take Me Out of this Ballgame!

Sometimes, timing is everything. It can be fantastic, where you find yourself in a situation where, had you been a moment earlier or later, you would have missed a phenomenal occurrence. Or, as was the case for me last night, you can choose just the wrong moment to run to the car, and return only to ask, "what did I miss?" Yep, in an attempt to take advantage of a slow moment in the action to get my Invisalign trays (invisible braces thingys), I missed out on the cherry on top of the weirdest baseball game I've ever seen.

To set the scene: the baseball diamond at Johnston High School in suburban Des Moines, a fairly well-maintained patch of grass and dirt on the outskirts of town. Beyond left field the test plots of agribusiness giant Pioneer stretch out to the horizon in a scene reminiscent of the original X-Files movie. To right, there are some signs of civilization, as cars sporadically file past the line of trees just outside the outfield fence. The sun is high overhead, baking the simple aluminum grandstands, but there is a slight breeze, and if you stay in the shade of the press box, it's a pretty pleasant day.

I'm there to cheer on my brother-in-law as he plays in a local amateur league game. The word amateur has a definition on a bit of a sliding scale: some of these guys look like they were maybe one bad break away from making it at least into the minors, while others just appear to be ordinary joes who enjoy the game. The same can be said for the officiating crew, unfortunately. The role of an umpire is hardly an easy one, but most of the ones I've seen have at a minimum seemed to try their best to be fair and impartial. Not so yesterday...

I won't recap the entire game here, but the most egregious offense of the night was the bro-in-law being hit by a pitch in three separate at-bats, and being bawled out by an umpire on a power trip on each occasion. Some of it was from the opposing team's assertion that he'd moved in order to get hit, some was due to frustration after the second, clearly retaliatory (except in the umpire's eyes) hit, and most of it was just because there was a dude with a little bit of authority and a lot of short-man syndrome.

I'm far from being a baseball expert - I consider myself just a person who enjoys the game. But I've been to more than a couple games, and I've seen some people get hit by a pitch. There are a lot of different ways people move in such instances: usually a flinch or step back to avoid getting beaned, or sometimes the batting motion itself gets them into the path of the ball, but I don't believe I've ever seen anyone try to get hit by a pitch. Particularly in a recreational league, where everyone is ostensibly playing "just for fun." I don't need to have ever played competitive baseball to know it's more fun to bat than to have a guy throw a ball at your body. Add to that the fact that their pitcher had been hitting batters all day long, and I think someone needed a warning, but I'm not sure the ump wanted to call out the team he was so chummy with.

Be that all as it may, my brother and his team were actually doing quite well, and were ahead of a previously unbeaten opponent. This was when I made my fateful trip to the car, and missed something so bizarre as to hardly be believed. Apparently the umpire told our team that he was fed up with the language he heard from the dugout, and if he heard one more cuss word, he'd throw someone out. I like to think that if I'd heard that in person I would have laughed out loud, but I might just have been flabbergasted into silence. This is an adult league, and the only spectators were a handful spouses and friends, but apparently Little League rules were called for. From what I hear, the angels don't care for swearing...

In the end, all turned out well, though I had a few anxious moments on a couple more bad/biased calls, where I silently urged our team to not fight it, just let it go, a couple more outs and we win. I had a good time overall: by the end of the game it had turned into a beautiful day for baseball. I just wish the umpire had understood it wasn't all about him. These games, and in a sense all baseball games, should be played for the love of the sport. I'm a sentimentalist at heart, but I still truly believe that. Sure, it's great to win, but you want to do it the right way. If you're wound so tightly that you're screaming that your opponent stepped into the pitch, it's time to reexamine why you're playing. And if you seize on that opportunity to use your position of authority to yell at the players, maybe you take another look at whether that paycheck for umpiring is worth it.

Thankfully, a few poor sports didn't ruin my enjoyment of the game. Baseball's bigger than those guys, just as it's bigger than me and my perceptions of how things "ought to be." All in all, I think that's a good thing.