Don Briggs, Umpire, Ejects Crowd During Baseball Game

WEST BURLINGTON, Iowa — An umpire has emptied the stands at a high school baseball game, ejecting the entire crowd of more than 100 fans for being unruly.

Umpire Don Briggs said he had no problem with any of the student athletes during Thursday's game between Winfield-Mount Union and West Burlington.

He said he had to take action because fans were being unruly, yelling and arguing.

However, West Burlington Superintendent James Sleister said he didn't see any unusual behavior and said he thought the umpire overreacted.

The game resumed after a 40-minute delay. West Burlington won 12-11.

The umpire called police as a precaution. West Burlington police officer Al Waterman says there were no arrests. He says he saw no unruliness himself.

Comments

[ute]

When I was a wee lad, baseball the THE sport. It was the best...

When I hit the ball, the sound everyone heard was wood on horsehide. THWACK!

Now, when our little league batsmen hit the pea all everyone hears is... CLINK! CLANK!

MLB has a commissioner who is a franchise OWNER! WTF??

MLB has not gotten rid of the DH.

The current incarnation of baseball sucks. The playoff system sucks. The corporate ownership of teams sucks.

This is not the game I grew up with... and loved.

I did not leave baseball. Baseball left me.

[Steve Dugan]

I know I'm in the minority on this one, but the umpires my son has had from Little League to HS have on the most part been lousy and not deserving of this kind of power. Some heckling is part of baseball. These umpires need to get a thicker skin and realize that. There is NO indication from any of the articles that the fans were threatening the umpire, only that they were "arguing". I can think of 1,000 different ways that umpires can be on the receiving end of the heckling. Two, because they are wishy-washy and only care about the paycheck at the end of the game. Call a fair game, take control of the game from before the first pitch, not let one coach "talk you into or out of" a wrong call, and have fun. Then, if parents get unruly, the umpire has the absolute right to throw anyone out of a game for violating the tone of the game he/she set from the beginning. Umpires nowadays are given absolute power without earning absolute respect. Their recourse is to threaten draconian measures against the crowd and/or the team, but there is no recourse for the teams when umpires fail in their duty to call a fair game.

[strangelet]

You ever worked as an ump?

[deadcustodian]

AND GET OFF MY LAWN!

[MalloMel]

I wonder if he could have some sort of hormonal problem, where at certain times he might act irrational, and at other times he is OK?

[Rondo]

this might be a stretch but the article never said anything about the crowd actually leaving

such as

the crowd left peacefully

or

the crowd took one hour to evacuate the stands under police supervision

maybe they never left?

[copestir]

I've been to a couple of girls soft ball game where I wished the crowd would have been ejected.

[Soundofthunder]

Throw them out of the ballgame, throw them out of the park,
Eject the fans for giving you smack,
Tell them never ever come back!
So it’s boot, boot, boot all the home fans,
For being unruly and lame,
So it’s one! two! everyone’s out of the old ballgame!

SOT

[HerCabinBoy]

AWESOME!

[gene poole]

That's hot

[BikeFreak]

Good for him.

I have seen people (parents mostly) become rude and obnoxious at these school sporting events. They wouldn't know the words "good sportsmanship" if it hit them between the eyes.

[contented]

i was a volunteer umpire for little league in mid-coast maine for quite a few years. i loved it for a long time, especially having the best seat in the house. for the most part, the players and the coaches were reasonable people, there to enjoy the game.

i was a successful business man and had plenty of horsepower around town and was not fascinated with the "authority" part of umpiring that can sometime afflict some umpires.

the one constant was the unpredictable behavior of the parents/re­latives/fa­ns. it didn't take many of them having a grumpy ass day to be disruptive, unkind, noisy and aggressive enough to have a ruinous effect on the game.

personally, i would have avoided making that call for as long as possible, but when it seemed truly necessary i'd do it reluctantly, ever aware of the grandstanding appearance of it.

umpiring was fun in the beginning, but eventually those same type of people that got thrown out of that game sucked the fun out of it over time.

umpires should have term limits.......3 years is plenty, lol.

[sisterdebmac]

I grew up hanging out at little league parks as my dad umpired. But he didn't really like for me to watch the games he umped because people would yell the meanest things at him. It would upset my stepmom sometimes the things they'd say. I'd usually just wander around with the other kids who were family of the players or coaches, what have you. Or I'd watch other games. I don't think anyone realizes how they sound to the families of umpires.

[HerCabinBoy]

So the "ejected" fans didn't, in response, storm the field and simultaneously throw tantrums like the game's greatest angry managers have? What a shame. They should have wrecked the whole field. They should've torn up every blade of grass, messed up all the dirt, stolen all 4 bases and ran 'em over with their trucks out in the parking lot, the whole 9 yards!

[shadowpoodle]

Please refrain from procreation in the future.

[HerCabinBoy]

Indeed! Surely I'd have to teach my offspring the finer points of baseball.

[TJCole]

Send this man to Congress we need him there..!

[Bitsko]

Is that you greatlardini? ;^)

[huffyISaHottie]

didn't Obama promise a complete overhaul of the empire system?... :)

[robertlockwoodmills]

I think we need instant replay for this one. Seriously, to eject an entire crowd for the behavior of a few rowdies seems absurd. It's like throwing everyone involved in a protest march in jail because somebody was throwing a smoke bomb. Of course, they do that in some countries. But in Iowa?