Originally Posted by duga

Playing baseball is one thing. Umpiring baseball is a different beast altogether.

I used to umpire little elementary school kids (the youngest even played t-ball). For the most part, everyone was just there to have fun and the coaches/parents understood that. Every once in a while some ****wad would take it entirely too seriously and freak out on me. One time, the ball landed right behind the first baseman and he couldn't for the life of him find it. He was getting really embarrassed. They got 2 runs on him with a third coming up shortly...there was no chance they weren't getting that third run so I just told the kid to look behind him. The coach flipped a **** on me, saying that's cheating blah blah...it got so bad I had to threaten to kick him off the field.

Then I moved on to eighth graders where there was a real chance some of those kids could play varsity the next year. Oh man, that's when I stopped umpiring.

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.