"A Must Read"...this umpire made the right call

Given permission to post:


I am checking my schedule and Monday is my first game of the year. I'm scheduled to do a varsity game at 4:00pm. It's opening day for me......every year. Its always a day I look forward to....

Its also a day when I remember one young player.......By my reckoning he would have been either a senior last year or this year. I will never forget him.....

I umpired his game on a beautiful day, kind of like one out of a storybook. Blue sky, sunshine and baseball. Was he nine or ten? Not sure my memory of him is all that clear.

I saw the pitch that came hard at him, I cringed knowing he was going to be hit.... and watched him crumple when the ball hit him square in the body. He went down and the tears flowed.....

I bent to help him, and try to comfort him. His coach and I lifted his shirt to see the mark the ball made...... I saw it, already red...and angry looking.....Its then I saw the other marks.... the angry purple bruises that only fists and adult hands can make....too many to be accidental..... He tugged his shirt down and got up....said he was fine and went to first....The game, of course, was more important than his getting hurt...

I was the one who called the police....I'll never regret that. I heard later he was taken out of the home and his parental abuser was charged. I heard he moved to live with relatives.....I never saw him again. But I see him every year, in every young mans face.

I look for him in the crowds of ballplayers that I get the priviledge to protect every season. Now, he is either a senior this year or a freshman in college.... and I hope he's playing baseball.........

Opening day for me again.

 

great post Braves!

fortunately i have never experienced that type of abuse with any of the players i have come in contact with but much like the umpire...........i would not hesitate one bit either.

 

The mom

What a great but sad post. I had an incident one time when I was teaching PE. Young lady didn't want to dress out, and when I made her she came out of the dressing room and then I saw her legs and knew why.... I too consulted my administrators and the police were called. I too will never regret that decision. I was 25 at the time, and when a young boy or girl came to PE and didn't want to dress out it always made me ask a few more questions as to what was going on. It is something that when one experiences it, one never forgets!!