The call of the game

\INDIANOLA, Neb. - I mentioned in an earlier column that I try to refrain from yelling at referees. I actually have some friends that still ref and my kids reffed in their school days, so the story is that referees are NOT supposed to care who wins a game.

Theoretically, that may be true and supposedly they don't have any reason to call a game one way or the other but if one has never watched a game that they thought was called without bias, I'll eat my hat! That's true for the NFL, NCAA, high school, junior high and even little kids. What people don't understand is that "personalities" are what comes into play. Either from the coaching sideline, the fans, or the reaction of a player to a call is what can cause bias.

The Bengals/Chiefs game was a reference as many complained about the reffing depending on which team one wanted to win. Even the Super Bowl was controversial depending on which team you were rooting for. In some previous years, I have attended games that were greatly affected by the calls in stripes and that was even games that I cared less about the result.

Summertime has a lot of baseball going on. We are pretty busy this time of year, so I haven’t been to many of the grandkids’ games. Recently I attended a coach’s pitch game in Arapahoe where they had two young fellas umpiring home and second base. These young ones probably had baby brothers playing and since these little guys hadn't won a game yet, they had to win to make the tournament. I thought the umps would also try to teach some basic rules like not impeding the runners and the difference between a forced out and an out that had to be tagged but this wasn't the case on this particular day.

One shouldn't get too excited, right?! After about six really biased calls to these little tykes, I admit I was laughing quite loudly. I had a BIG boy come sit behind us and ask if I wanted to ump the next game and I said, "Sure, I couldn't do any worse". Not the answer he was expecting evidently as he didn't take me up on his invitation. I've seen Tarzan huffing and puffing on the basketball court so he must be a proud man of authority.

If you hear a deep belly laugh at any future sporting events somewhere, you will know there is someone in the crowd that thinks the last call was hilarious. I can't help it if I'm a stickler for rules and think it's humanly impossible to call a game without bias.

Have a Good One!

P.S. And one baby