Randy Smith: Understanding Baseball Ejections

There has been a lot of talk about the ejection of Coastal Carolina baseball coach Kevin Schnall on Sunday. And since I've been both a coach and an umpire through the years, I feel that I may have a little perspective on the matter. I know it's a national championship game so the stakes were much higher than just a regular season game. Coastal Carolina was on the brink of elimination against LSU after dropping game one of the best of three series 1-0. The argument came after plate umpire Angel Campos, in Schnall's opinion had missed three straight pitches. Schnall stood at the top of the dugout steps holding up three fingers, indicating how many strikes Campos called that he didn't agree with.

The argument became more heated when Campos stopped play and told Schnall to stop arguing balls and strikes, which coaches should never do. One thing led to another and one of the base umpires fell backwards, looking as if he was bumped by Schnall. After looking at the video, it's clear that the base ump was not bumped....he just lost his balance. In addition to Coach Schnall being tossed, first base coach Matt Schilling was also ejected and all this happened in the first inning. I did notice that Campos issued a warning before he ejected Schnall. 

There is an unwritten rule for umpires and coaches alike to never "show up" the other. I didn't see any evidence that Kevin Schnall tried to do that with Angel Campos but you really couldn't tell exactly what was being said. You could tell however that the argument was becoming more and more heated. If Coastal had been able to win game two, Schnall and Schilling would both have been suspended for game three. They lost 5-3, handing LSU the National Championship.

I umpired on a much lower level than Campos and his crew but the game is still the same. In calling high school baseball I never ejected a coach....mainly because there was a hefty fine involved if a coach was ejected and I never wanted a hard working teacher and coach to lose that money. In umpiring girls summer softball, I tossed out several coaches because there was no penalty involved. Of course the weather was much hotter and you would call several games in one day. My " give a darn " was busted so my trigger was much quicker.  On one occasion I actually threw out a very unruly fan during a summer softball game, who threatened me with physical violence.

The bottom line is this: arguing with umpires is as much a part of the game as anything else but it needs to be handled by an umpire who is not a " hot head " or thinks too much of himself. Coaches can always question umpires but they need to pick the right time and in the right way. Kevin Schnall did neither.