Hazardous job


As if being an umpire at high school baseball games wasn't tough enough already with irate parents who live a little vicariously through their children and quick-tempered coaches who are convinced the men in blue are always conspiring against their respective teams.

Check out this video from last week's Class AAA state championship series between Cartersville and Stephens County:

http://www.workhorsevideoproductions.com/the%20pitch.mpg

The incident took place in the fifth inning of the deciding third game, won 13-1 by Cartersville. In the video, Stephens County catcher Matt Hill appears to duck and pull his mitt down, allowing a pitch to bonk umpire Jeff Scott on the noggin.

High school pitchers can be wild, for sure, but the Georgia High School Association is investigating whether Stephens County intentionally plunked the ump in order to send him a message. The inning before pitcher Cody Martin's pitch hit the umpire, shortstop Ethan Martin reportedly argued balls and strikes with Scott and threw his batting helmet in disgust after becoming the ninth straight Stephens County batter to strike out.

GHSA executive director Ralph Swearngin told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he expected to make a ruling as early as today on whether Hill acted intentionally in ducking and moving his mitt. Not sure what Swearngin would consider appropriate punishment in such a case. He could have the offending catcher stand over home plate in a batting cage, blindfolded, and allow the aggrieved umpire to feed balls into the pitching machine.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but expressing disgust at an umpire in such an over the top and potentially harmful manner seems counterproductive. What happened to old-fashioned antics like the chest-bump and Earl Weaver's practice of kicking dirt atop home plate?

Besides, when a team loses 13-1, chances are that it had far more troubling issues than an umpire's interpretation of the strike zone.