Thursday, September 1, 2011

Sliding Through a Base

Tonight in the second game of the Growlers double-header, we had the unfortunate situation where a guy (Dale) on the Growlers slid into second... but his momentum carried him (and the base) a few feet toward center field. I was reffing 3rd called him out as he was tagged (with the base still under him).

This resulted in a temper-tantrum that was a few "fucks" and "shits" short of this fake tirade in which a kid tries to shove a remote control up his ass. The whining about the call continued throughout the game... and of course into our own game which followed.

Some of you may recall this exact situation happening to me in October of 2010. I argued the same thing Dale did... which was to say I was still technically on the base and had it been anchored down like in professional baseball I would have NEVER slid past.

Unfortunately, I was wrong, as pointed out by Smithkey in this post.

The difference between my situation and the one tonight is... I didn't cuss out the un-paid volunteer ref who, last time I checked, is also a peer in our kickball community (side note... the ref that called me out was Tony. I hate admitting Tony was right).

Every kickball league operates under the same rule for this rare situation. WAKA's rule #10.10 is very clear:
"10.10 When a base is displaced during play, any runner is safe while in contact with the base's original and correct location. All displaced bases should be restored at the end of each play (see Rule 1.01b)."

I feel it's important to quote WAKA's ruling here, since that's where over-competitive assholes should be playing... and it would be a shame not to know #10.10 before you go back to that league. Remember: their bases aren't anchored down either.

To the few Growlers that read this blog, I'm sorry such a rare play occurred. I did my best to make a call based on what I saw, and to get the game moving on without a big argument (especially considering that we were running 20 minutes late). I understand that getting called out (and losing) in a week 2 regular season kickball game is very traumatic. So I've asked GOKickball to cut my volunteer pay by 90% for the rest of the season... I calculate: $0.00 x 10% = $0.00. I'll be struggling to pay the bills the rest of the year, but I suppose that's the price you pay for actually knowing the rules and making a decisive decision.

I won't let it happen again. Especially when I ref your week 5 game.

Love,
Chandler "The Blue Fucker"


7 comments:

FRANK said...

baeddy nice

MJ said...

we could bring white spray paint and spray paint an outline of the bases (we'd prob get in trouble though like yella driving donuts on the field)

!! HOT TUB PARTY TODD !! said...

Is that why those Bast^^^ds ended late, forcing us to get our game cut short just when the lights went out? we had a solid 10 min to pull out the come from behind vitory we had planned for Bull's going away.... but that didn't happen, thnks to those pissy growlers.

Rollo said...

This post=gold

M. Gorecki said...

I was witness to this tirade and Chandler describes it perfectly. The only mistake I made was when explaining to the guy was that he was tagged by Alison in which totally sent him off saying he wasnt even tagged by her. He was correct (sort of) as it was Matt and not Alison that tagged him.

This guy conitnued to refuse to leave the base so I finally just started pitching across the plate to keep the game going.

After the game this guy STILL has a bad attitude and instead of saying "good game" when we high five the opponents his response was "cant wait to play you again". Really dude?

Anyways to the rest of the growlers the ballics enjoyed a competitive game with you.

To the "Grumpy Growler" I hope you've calmed down by now and just be glad a former teammate of mine named Jeannette wasn't present team in which she would've threatened you with "You're never getting laid again".

So relax and go get some ok?

Gorechate Out.

Litman said...

rack him?

Anonymous said...

Apologies from the Jagerbo.....err, Growlers. It was a crazy rule that most of us didn't know about. Regardless, the reaction was completely unnecessary.