I've Been Scratched

Well, they say there are two kinds of officials in this world; those that a school has scratched, and those who have yet to be scratched by a school. Well, I entered the "scratched" ranks of a particular High School this past week. For those of you that don't officiate, that means I am no longer allowed to call at this school. Now I'm forced to ask myself the question why? Why did this coach feel the need to scratch me? What did I do to make her pull the trigger? Why do I care?

Looking back on the game, it was pretty uneventful. The coach in question won, and I really had no hard calls to make. However there were three instances where she had to come out of the dugout and question my call. The first two were for the call "illegal pitch". It's the softball equivalent to a balk, and there are several different things that can occur for a pitch to be illegal. My call was made simply for what is known as the "Leap". In the Federation book (High School Rule Book) a leap is defined under Rule 2, Article 4, Section 33: "A Leap is when both feet are airborne by the pitcher prior to delivering the pitch", easy right? Slow down there cowboy, not when you coach in North East Texas, and you pitched for a junior college whose acceptance policy is that you have a tongue ring, and can dance to euro-trash techno while contorting your hands holding glow sticks. This stupid heifer wants to pull out the old "she's not gaining any advantage" line on me too. You know, if she wasn't gaining an advantage then why would the National Federation of State High School Associations have it in their book? Is it their contempt for trees? Do they feel the need to print insignificant shit just to waste paper? No, It's a rule you tard, get used to it.

So this call gets levied on her a few more times and she is none to happy with the old Mole. That's fine, she's not the first coach to be upset with me and she won't be the last. But, I'm doing my job, I'm doing it well, and her players are cheating. It's as simple as that.

It gets better though. Later in the game we have a steal and the defender is blocking the runner’s access to the bag. The runner slides into the defender; the defender catches the ball, and puts a tag down. Me, I rule "dead ball" give the signal for delayed dead-ball, verbalize "OBSTRUCTION" and rule the runner safe. This call however doesn't sit well with coach, so she calls time and waddles her fat ass across the field to question my call....again. "Blue, I have to appeal this one. She got the tag on before the runner reached the base, you totally missed it". To which I responded, "Coach I'm not going to disagree with you but this runner is safe as a result of the obstruction". She then proceeds to do what all professional coaches do, she rolls her eyes like she's lacking a constant flow of oxygen to her brain, and stomps back to the dugout. Does she ask me for a rule interpretation, does she ask what I saw and why I ruled what I did? No, panting because she had to remove her gelatinous can off that damn ball bucket, she just drags herself back to the dugout. No other comments, no words exchanged the rest of the game, and following day, I'm scratched. Again, to quote the book, Rule 2-Article 4-Section 36:

"Obstruction is the act of the defensive team member that hinders or impedes a batter's attempt to make contact with a pitched ball or that impedes the progress of a runner or batter-runner who is legally running the bases, unless the fielder is in possession of the ball or is fielding a batted ball. The act may be intentional or unintentional, physical or verbal."

For those of you not following along, defender had no ball, blocked bag, runner slides into defender, defender catches ball, and tags runner before runner reaches base successfully. I understand that the collegiate knowledge base of this coach is the same as average Dallas stripper, but how could she be upset about this call?

I've been stewing on this for a few days, and there are two things I find upsetting. One, if you're a coach, don't come to me arguing a call when you haven't spent the time and effort to read the damn book. The thing isn't really long, and it's not Homer. It's easy to comprehend the first time through. Secondly, if you're an official, grow a proverbial pair, let them drop, and make the call. Some of you are so eff’n scared of a coach it's laughable. They're just people, like us. By not making that call you're doing a disservice not only to your fellow official who comes in behind you making that call, but to the girls playing, and the integrity of the game. Because of the ineptitude of a coach that is either illiterate, or should work on her reading comprehension; and my fellow officials that won't make the hard call because they don't know to, or because they're a pussy, I'm scratched.

Oh and one other thing, to her red-neck dad that uses "cain't" and can't seem to pronounce the 'G' in the 'ing' suffix, you sucked when you called ball. You didn't have the sack for the job and that's why you quit. Do us all a favor and quit trying to recite rules you didn't know 5 years ago and have changed since you pussied out of calling.

I'll be working toward my college try out while you're trying to keep your daughter from dating "them boys"

Clown