ontrolling a game and maintaining the respect of coaches, players, and fans are important skills since virtually every call is scrutinized based on their perception of your abilty as much as what they see with their own eyes. So, when a coach starts to undermine your stature, you may not have to eject. You may have another option if you can be a little innovative.

There are really two stories I want to relate here. So let's look at what happened in the third game of the day, when a coach started showing me up.

Pick-off at first

As usual, the Marion runner strayed too far, and as we all know, a good 16-year-old pitcher (BTW, his name is Scott Striker — what a name for a pitcher!) can hum it to first. He did, the runner got caught on the return belly flop, and I had an O-U-T! Tri-City (and Striker!) got out of the inning without giving up a run.

It was a close call but not an unusually hard one. Of course, my credibility in the tournament had been very high and — kid you not — nobody thought I was wrong . . . EXCEPT the first-base coach from Marion.

Continued...