I went to the Super Regionals where Arizona and Stanford played some great games. Arizona took the series 2-1 and advanced to the College World Series for Women's Fastpitch Softball.
As I watched the games with my family on Saturday evening, I noticed that while there were 3 trained Umpires on the field, there were 200+ wanna be umpires in the stands. While some comments brought some laughs, most were extremely derogatory and in my humble opinion uncalled for.
I had the unique perspective of sitting directly behind the homeplate umpire and with the exception of a few "it could have gone either way" calls, the umpires generally had it right. The moans from the crowd generally came from pitches that were knee to waist high, but were way inside or outside. It was purely the perspective the fans had by sitting to the right/left side of homeplate. The umpires definitely did not deserve the derogatory comments.
Umpires are human and I need to remember that. I'm committed to not exercising my umpire skills this year and I hope all involved with Trouble will try and do the same.
By the way, the one funny and what I considered to be a harmless heckle was "Hey Ump...you need to check your long distance plan because you just dropped that call". Even the umpire chuckled.
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