Key Issues

Robbed

My girls were robbed.

We had our first tournament game Tuesday night. We are a city team, and we were playing a county team.

The first thing the umpire said to me as we took the field was, "You a city team? Yeah, well, this is a county field, and we play by county rules."

Okay fine, dickweed, we'll skunk your ass anyway is what went through my head, but, as I didn't want to contribute to his already blatant bias, I affixed a smile to my face and returned to the dugout.

Luckily they had first bat. Meaning they may get on the board first, but we'd get last bat, and those final points often make the game.

There is a five run limit per team, per inning. Unfortunately, we were only averaging a couple of runs per inning, due to a scoreless third inning on our part. The score was six to seven (them) at the bottom of the third.

I figured we were still in pretty good shape. A game in this league is five innings, and it's only called at the bottom of the fourth if a team is more than six runs behind, meaning that even if they scored their five runs in the fifth, it wouldn't be enough.

So it's top of the fourth...their bat. And, crap. They got their five runs. Now it's 12 to 6, with them having batted 4 times, us 3 times.

No prob. We were at the top of the line-up. We'd get our five, and the score would be 12 to 11 going into the fifth, making that last inning that much more exciting.

Just one problem...the ump called the game.

That's right. Either he had it out for us, or he had his tops and bottoms confused. Either way, with 21 minutes left in the game, at the top of the fourth, we were robbed. My best batter was up, and she was devastated. They didn't get last bat.

The head coach (my husband) tried to protest, but the ump wouldn't hear it.

"It's over. You can't catch up."

Hmm... Let's do some math. Two times left up to bat equals a ten run potential for us, next to their one time left to bat, a five run potential for them...

...I'd say we could have caught up.

There was no supervisor in site, and the other team was packing it up and sneaking out. Yeah, they knew...

The county rec dept. confirmed the next day that the ump was "mistaken," and inquired as to why we didn't take it up with a supervisor. (I thought that was cute.) He said he'd have given us a field, if he had one, so that we could finish the game, but during tournaments it was just too booked.

I knew that already, besides it would have royally screwed up the brackets.

Luckily, the tournament is double elimination, so my girls aren't dead yet, just a bit discouraged.

They were robbed.