Why Umpires make bad players
by Mike Walker

I admit to being a good example of this bad example.

Umpires who play softball (like me) can be some of the worst at getting on the umpires during the games they play in. Of course I'm not talking about all umpires or probably even the majority of them who still play softball, just those of us who are like me!!!!

Last Sunday I did it again, argued with an umpire, really I argued and he said nothing at all which made him a better umpire than me as well, because of what I thought was a wrong call.

Of course the call went against me so naturally I had to prove a point and that was that I knew the rule better than he did and that he made a wrong ruling based on his lack of knowledge as well as eye sight.

So since I'm a perfect umpire and I know the rules better than him I just had to show him how dumb I really am by pointing it out to him in front of everyone on the ball field and on the side lines.

Good going Mr., as my wife would have said to me if she was there at the time. Maybe that is one of the reasons she don't come to many of my games anymore hummmm?

Well any way after stating my opinions and making sure he knew what the ruling should have been I could have stopped at that point and just let it go but noooooooo I had to take it with me into the field on defense.

And later on I even had to tell the other team how much I thought about the call, their part in adding to the bad call and even a little about what I thought of some of them (not true statements at the time but I was wanting someone else to be made besides me at the time)......

So you can bet I didn't make many new friends on this day!

Later even some of my team mates who had agreed with me that the call was not correct were good enough to let me know that I didn't have to go to the extreme I had in making my point.

They told me to let it go and even actually said they hoped no one was watching because they might have held it against my whole team as well as me! Now that really hit home the point.

Here I was being angry about what I thought was a wrong call but my actions were not only hurting my teams momentum during the game but possibly affecting how other people my team mates knew and respected were looking at them.

This water on my fire quickly cooled me off and once I got over myself being Mr. Right about a call I quickly learned how really Mr. Wrong I was in handling it the way I did.

Maybe it is old age or something else but I have felt really bad about the situation ever since last Sunday and I plan on apologizing to the other team when I see them next and that umpiring crew when I see them again.

I have already apologized to my team mates and will ask them to not allow me to hurt the team during the game with such antics in the future or to allow me to embarrass them again either.

Softball is game and senior softball is suppose to be about having fun while you still can play the game. I wish we (I) could remember that during the game in situations like this in the future.

Mike writes for the Florida Senior Sports Association Newsletter - Senior Softball Newsletter