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Dusty Neilsen, assistant coach. |
Baseball |
2017-04-05 |
Cottonwood |
This game was very intense, with several incidents leading up to the ejection. Both teams and coaching staffs were warned to control themselves after coaches from each team converged to argue with each other after a player from Bingham allegedly had words with a player from Cottonwood. Neither me nor Thomas heard any derogatory comments that led to this incident. This event occurred after the bottom half of the 7th inning ended, close to the Bingham dugout. In addition, the coaches from Cottonwood had become increasingly vocal as the game progressed about their displeasure with the strike zone and other disputed calls. The warning to the teams was given by UIC Thomas Paxton, to settle the coaches down and try to restore some calm and control to the game.
In the top of the 10th inning, Bingham had a runner on 2nd with less than 2 outs. As the field umpire, I was in the C position. The batter hit a deep fly ball to center field, and the runner on 2nd recognized that the ball would not be caught, and headed for third, rounded third, and scored. I watched the fly ball, and Thomas, being the plate ump, tracked the runner.
When the play ended, Cottonwood appealed at third base that the runner missed third. The third baseman looked at me after he touched third base on the appeal, and the Cottonwood coaches looked at me, as if I was the umpire responsible for tracking the runner around third. I pointed to Thomas, who ruled the runner safe, that he touched 3rd base.
At that point, Cottonwood’s assistant coach, Dusty Neilsen, was standing in the dugout entrance, and started yelling at Thomas. He started by yelling, “why are you making that call. That’s not your call, you weren’t even watching the play, you didn’t see that, you’re horrible, you’ve been horrible all day, this game is too fast for you, you aren’t even paying attention,” and comments similar to that – directed at Thomas.
Thomas looked toward the dugout, and made the assumption that head coach Jason Crawford was the one making derogatory comments, and told Jason he was restricted to the dugout. The assistant coach said, “that’s me saying those things, not him.” So Thomas ejected the assistant coach, and restricted Jason to the dugout.
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Darrell Hernandez |
Baseball |
2018-03-30 |
Providence Hall |
Before the game, I was running late, caught in construction traffic, so I called Greg Arata, my partner, who was at the field, and he was able to gear up and take the plate for the first varsity game. The field at West Ridge Academy (Providence Hall's home field) does not have foul lines in grass beyond the infield to the fence. In pregame, Greg and I discussed this, and agreed that Greg would be better suited to line up fair-foul calls with the infield foul line.
At the beginning of the bottom of the 7th inning, one of the assistant coaches for PH, Darrel Hernandez, was yelling at Greg about inconsistent strike zone. Since he was standing close to me (I was in A position, he was at the back of the first base dugout), I told him to knock it off. At the end of that half-inning, I told the PH head coach to put a muzzle on his assistant coach, that if they had any issues with us we would only talk to the head coach, that the assistant coach had no business complaining to the umps.
The game went into extra innings, and the first batter for Juab in the top of the 8th hit a deep fly ball down the right field line. Per our pre-game discussion, I came in and tracked the runner. I thought I heard someone say something that sounded like "foul," but I wasn't certain who said it, or what was even said. As the runner rounded first, I glanced over my shoulder at Greg, who was pointing fair. I tracked the runner to 3rd, where he was safe without a throw.
I turned and looked at the plate, because I heard a big commotion there. That same assistant coach was at home plate, in Greg's face, yelling at him, extremely irate, about calling the ball foul, then signaling fair. The head coach was slowly walking towards the plate, not saying anything. I came in to the plate area, and told the assistant coach, "Coach, you're the assistant, you have no business being out here. You need to back away and let your head coach deal with this." He replied, "I don't care, that was a crappy call.." and continued to berate Greg. I said, "This is your written warning. If you say anything else, you're in the dugout." Again, he said, "I don't care, I'm not gonna shut up." and continued with his tirade. I said, "coach, you're in the dugout. Another word and you're ejected!" He replied, "eject me then, because I'm not gonna shut up." So I ejected him. Then he said, "Good. Now I can really say what I think." And he continued to rip into Greg. I then turned to the head coach, who was just standing there, and told him to get his assistant under control. He finally ushered his assistant coach away, and the game continued. |
