A follow up to my earlier blog on the attack on an umpire at a youth baseball game

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog regarding an umpire in New Jersey who was attacked by a youth baseball coach resulting in the umpire’s jaw being broken during the attack. This is a follow up to the that blog.

The original blog discussed an article that Matthew Stanmyer of NJ.com wrote about a youth baseball coach who attacked a 72-year-old umpire, leaving the umpire with a broken jaw that required extensive surgery and while a coach attacking an umpire is bad enough, as the EMT’s were providing medical attention to the fallen umpire the parents of the team whose coach attacked the umpire were cursing at him and saying that “he deserved it”. The article went on to say that the coach and his team have been banned from the US Amateur Baseball League (USABL) and the president of the New York Prospects (the team involved in this incident) stated that the coach was been suspended pending investigation.

In Mr. Stanmyer’s follow up article he stated that the umpire, Mr. Jim Neely, first thoughts after the attack, while the coach was running away, was that he was going to get a gun. Thankfully, the coach did not get a gun but ran to his truck to get away, just like most cowards would do. The article goes on to state that Mr. Neely started officiating youth sports game in 1987 and in addition to umpiring baseball at both the youth and high school level, he has umpired/refereed softball, basketball and soccer and he saw it as a way to give back to the community while making a few extra dollars, but he never dreamed that it would lead to violence.

Mr. Neely stated that the attack resulted from a missed balk call during the game. The coach who attacked Mr. Neely thought that the opposing pitcher balked and neither umpire called the infraction. Mr. Neely stated that between innings the coach approached him to argue the call and has the conservation got more heated Mr. Neely walked away. Finally, Mr. Neely addressed the coach and said that “the play was over and he would pay more attention going forward”. Mr. Neely stated that as the game went on he was feeling that “the atmosphere was starting to feel unsafe” and it was during this time that the coach approached Mr. Neely and said “you’re a piece of (expletive)” after which Mr. Neely ejected the coach and started to walk away and then the coach hit Mr. Neely, breaking his jaw in two places.

Mr. Neely has subsequently filed a lawsuit against “the coach, the Staten Island based team that the coach was coaching and its team president, the league that hosted the game, the U.S. Amateur Baseball League and 10 John Does or parents who verbally encouraged and/or fostered the assault”. As I stated in my previous blog, the parents were verbally abusing Mr. Neely the whole game and were actually yelling expletives at the umpire while EMS personal were treating him after the attack. Let’s think about that for a second, the parents, who are supposed to be role models for our youth, were YELLING EXPLETIVES at Mr. Neely, a man who was just attacked and had a broken jaw over a YOUTH BASEBALL GAME.

Is this what America has become? A country where, when a coach in a youth sporting event doesn’t get their way they attack the game official in front of a group of impressionable youth, who in some cases may look up to the coach as a role model. I’ve admitted in previous blogs that in my over 25 years of coaching youth soccer and baseball I had disagreements with umpires/referees because I thought they blew a call on the field; however, NEVER EVER did it get close to getting physical, in fact the thought never crossed my mind. There was no way that I was going to risk losing everything I had, my family, my job, myself respect, etc. over a youth sporting event and while the “blown call” may have been the most important thing at that particular moment, getting physical with a game official wasn’t worth the risk of losing everything. Once, while coaching my daughter’s travel soccer team, we lost a close game due to some questionable calls so when the game ended we had our post game meeting and once that ended the girls all ran to their parents and asked if they could go and see the animals (there were live animals near the field that were used as part of the live nativity at Christmas). So, while my assistant coach and I were angry over the poor officiating and lamenting the tough loss, the girls just wanted to see the animals, which is exactly what 9- and 10-year-old girls should want to do.

I have previously written, that in my opinion, the reason that violence against game officials has become so prevalent in youth sports has been the explosion of travel/select/elite teams and the costs associated with these teams, including all the associated training that is being pushed on parents because they are told that if their child does not get all this additional training “they will be left behind”. And because parents are paying all this money to have their child(ren) play on these travel/select/elite teams the coaches are feeling pressure to win to keep the parents happy, thus leading to the “win at all costs” attitude that we now have in today’s youth sports. Youth sports is facing a real issue with the loss of youth sports officials (umpires/referees) to officiate games and this is due to the abuse that they are taking from coaches and parents alike. Most game officials are dropping out, with most leaving officiating within three years of starting (this is according to the National Federation of State High School Associations). The money they may be making just is not worth the possible physical harm they might receive if some coach or parent feels that their future “superstar/professional athlete” has been wronged. It’s time that the adults in the room and wake up to the fact that the current model just isn’t working and that something has to be done to change the direction that youth sports is heading.

Finally, here’s hoping that Mr. Neely’s lawsuit is successful if only to stop ONE person from committing violence against a youth sports official in the future.