North Reading Men's Softball

Worst umpiring job I have ever been witness to occurred last night. Let's just make a pact now if we see that guy in the series again we just give him his $25 and tell him we don't need him for the night. This is the finals, we shouldn't have to deal with that kind of nonsense. Had no idea what the league rules were for height of pitches, didn't know the full ground rules, didn't work to get into position to make calls, called strikes that didn't even make it passed the plate. Just awful

I don't know what you guys are talking about.......  I liked the guy!   I broke up Shauns no-hitter with a "foul single",  and i was able to throw 20 foot strikes!!!

Funny thing,   the umpire was down the field early with a few of us and said   " the other night i did the bases but tonight i am doing the plate, my advice to you is......swing"  

I agree with Steve but i do not agree with the 25 dollar donation to him.     I know there is a shortage of umpires but i am sure that we could scrape up something a little better than that.

It was fun watching the 3rd base coach have to scramble out of the way of a base hit! I also  liked the "Fair catch" hand signal for a strike... and sometimes the same signal for a ball too.

Regardless, good game guys.

He also used the "tomahawk chop" sometimes to signal a strike.

Credit goes out to the base umpire for trying to get a grip on the umpire before it got way out of hand.   How about the 1st pitch of the game?!  2 ft outside!

I'm not usually a fan of complaining about umpires, but when the guy shows up with the intention of making a "statement" in game 2 of the finals, that's a serious problem.  All the teams ask for is to get a chance to play the game the same way we've been playing it all year. 

We got severely outplayed by a team that is pretty clearly playing a lot hungrier and more focused than we are right now.  By no means am I suggesting that the umpiring had ANYTHING to do with our piss-poor performance.  That being said, the clown behind the plate set an awful tone from the first pitch.  We're there to play the damn game, not be taught life lessons by some moron getting $25 to fuck the game up. 

Hopefully, everyone on both teams shows up with a clear head on Monday and we can never speak of this again.  Good luck, guys.  I'm sure you realize that we're not done yet. 

THANK YOU!!!

I didn't want to be the first to post anything about last night’s game. I didn't want it to look like I was blaming the umpires for us losing.

Primio deserved to win. They had to deal with the same lousy umpire that we did.

That being said... I agree with Steve. Worst umpire I have ever seen. And I've been around a LONG time!!

I can't even count how many times both teams just looked at him in disbelief. He started from the first pitch of the game and never looked back!

Before the game started he said we should be ready to swing. That’s fine… I have no problem making it a hitter’s game. But at least make the pitcher throw a strike. And be consistent with your strike calls so we know what is and isn’t a strike. One of our guys hit a ball down the third base line that was foul by so much he stayed in the batters box. That moron called it a fair ball.

I know that not every call is going to be right. But I also know that for the most part all the umpires do their best to make the right call.

Not this guy. He sucked. Not one time did he move his old flabby ass out from behind the plate to make a call.

At the end of the game when I called him out on it, all he did was look at me and smile. He might not think this is serious, but when you play 30 friggin games to get to this point it would be nice to have an umpire that actually gave a shit!!

I blame whoever assigns umpires to the games. They treat North Reading as a second rate league. Send all the worst umpires to do our games. I say if USSSA doesn’t want to be serious about OUR LEAGUE, then we should switch to ASA.

That umpire last night didn't do one single North reading game this year. But they send him down to do the finals?!!!

I know the rest of the umpires read this forum. I just want to let you know that whoever this sorry excuse for an umpire was….. He makes the rest of you look bad. He wears your uniform. If he was wearing my team’s uniform… I’d be embarrassed to play with him!!!

you know its bad when the conversation before the game goes like this:

Me:  (jokingly) Are you going to call USSSA height for strikes tonight?

Plate Umpire:  Yes.  Its 6-12 feet.

Me:  Um, no.  USSSA is 3-10 feet from point of release

Plate Umpire:  No its 6-12 feet from release

Me:  Shaking my head walking away

Plate Umpire:  Better be ready to swing the bat tonight!-Directed to our team bench

If you are going to send down umpires, they should know the basic rules right?