Take me out to the ball game

The other night after umpiring some baseball games Lee came home and demonstrated his preferred pronunciation of words such as "STriiiiii", "Ouu", and "ball" and the coordinating choreography to go with them. It was very insightful and, needless to say, quite entertaining.

So Lee is having a great time as an official at the baseball games and I have always loved baseball & softball so I enjoy going to watch just for the fun of it. Except, you know how some angry parents can express their aggression to the guys in blue? Right. About that... well, nothing has happened yet, because obviously Lee is a very honest official, but he is bound to make an honest mistake here and there and well, parents, coaches, and teams are not always the most understanding of mistakes made by referees, umpires, or other various official positions.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately. In so many sports we put our "trust" in the officials to make the right calls. Now, we've all been to high school or maybe even college games where we've wondered if the official was either blind, incompetent, or flat out bias. Those instances truly suck. Still, what about the times when the official just makes an honest mistake. The ball was a little outside but he called it a strike. Or the ball totally beat the runner to the bag but she called it safe. The officials of any sport can take some serious heat for honest, human errors. The eyes can play tricks, right? And sometimes from certain angles things really do look differently.

What is to be learned from this? Yeah, I'm asking myself the same thing. I just think it is a good reminder to be patient and understanding with people when they make mistakes and to not always be jumping to conclusions about other people. And in the meanwhile, I'll do my best to build up enough poise and class to control my temper when some hot headed ma or pa gets to yellin' at my baby daddy on the field. . .