The worst umpire call of all time

It happened many years ago at a Little League softball game in a Syracuse suburb.

I was manager of a 9-10 age group girls all-star team from Dunkirk and we were playing for a berth in the state semifinals. Pretty big deal.

Thanks to some highly successful fundraising by team parents, we all got to spend the night before the game in a nearby hotel.

We followed all Little League rules on what we could legally reimburse for player food and lodging. Parents gladly paid their fair share.

Bill Hammond

Had we not gone a day early, we would have had to be up before dawn on game day and drive more than three hours down the Thruway for a mid-morning start. Not a great recipe for success.

We even squeezed in a visit to the Carousel Mall in Syracuse before an eventful hotel night. Remember, these were young ladies full of energy. Yes, there was lots of running, screeching and yelling in the hallways.

We awoke to a steady rain that put our best-laid plans in jeopardy. It rained through game time and beyond.

The field was underwater and unplayable.

We were in a bind. We did not have the finances to spend a second night. Nor would we drive home and then drive back the next morning.

We either played sometime later that day or we would have to forfeit and leave.

Fortunately, a group of parents for our hometown opposition rallied together to coax an army of volunteers to descend on the water-logged facility.

It takes a while to scrape 4 inches of mud off an infield and replace it with dozens of bags of Diamond Dry.

We were very grateful for all their hard work.

The game finally started late in the afternoon, but we had a big problem. The umpires scheduled for that morning were long gone and would not be coming back.

Seems there was a major Little League tourney involving several age groups in another part of the Syracuse area and all the umps were working there.

We had to settle for the host field’s lady vice president for the plate job and a male volunteer from the crowd for the bases. Not ideal, but better than nothing. Or so we thought.

We loaded the bases with one out in an early inning and appeared ready to take the lead.

My batter was jammed by an inside pitch and nubbed the ball on a slight arc right back at the pitcher. The sub 5-foot tall pitcher jumped to catch the little looper, which never was more than 8 feet high, but just missed it.

The ball landed right behind her in the pitching circle. My runners all took off and we ended up scoring a run. Or so we thought.

The plate umpire called time and then declared, “infield fly.”

She called my batter out and then made things much worse. She ordered all of the runners to return to their original bases and erased our run.

Her flawed reasoning was “umpire interference.” It was her opinion she had unduly confused the defense with her late call.

If you are at all familiar with the admittedly tricky infield fly rule, you can feel my pain.

My trusted base coach, Gib Snyder, protested a little too loudly and profanely, and was ejected from the game. My lifelong friend, classmate and frequent teammate was long gone by the time I reached home plate from my spot in the dugout.

For those of you unfamiliar with the infield fly rule, it should only be applied when a pop fly is hit to a fielder in fair territory who has a reasonable opportunity to make the catch. There are runners on first and second base, or the bases are loaded. And there are less than two outs.

The umpire ideally makes the audible call when the ball reaches its highest point, never on a mishit line drive within jumping distance of the pitcher. Sending the runners back was an equally grievous mistake on her part.

Umpire interference almost always involves an umpire negatively affecting a catcher’s throw. Didn’t happen here.

So, to recap. A horrible, indefensible and stunningly wrong and late ruling, followed by a totally inappropriate misapplication of the umpire interference rule.

We lost the critical go-ahead run and now there were two outs. We would end up not scoring.

I formally protested the game, but It was denied 2-1. The home plate ump and a representative from our opponents outvoted a Dunkirk family member with a working knowledge of the rules.

We never recovered after those nightmarish decisions and trekked home with a bitter defeat. And worse, pre-teen tears.

As you can tell, I haven’t gotten over it. Not even a little bit.

***

KNOW a worse call? Drop me a line at mandpp@hotmail.com. I’d love to chat.

Bill Hammond is a former EVENING OBSERVER sports editor.