The Good, the Bad and the UGLY.
Spoiler Alert: this post will be a very brief rant.
For those of you that know me well, or heck, even if you've followed this blog for a short time, you know that I love baseball and photography. Photography has been a great entrèe to experiencing things in baseball that few have seen or heard.
Some of what I have experienced is Good. Some is Bad. Some is down right Ugly.
Unfortunately, often the ugliness is not between the lines but outside the field of play.
I was at a game today that due to the layout of the field I had to shoot the action amongst the spectators. The stuff that I heard was a lot of whining, shouting, and yes, cursing about the umpire's calls on the field. These words and more importantly the reactions of the fans could (was) easily seen by the players in the dugout.
One play in particular drew the outrage of the crowd. There was a play at second where the umpire called a girl trying to steal the base safe. While the ball was received by the defender long before the girl started her slide, the girl attempting to steal was able to reach the base before she was ever tagged.
The group around me erupted. It was not pretty. In fact it was UGLY.
The photo above shows the play. The girl stealing the base was safe. My camera can capture a moment in time, a thousand or eight thousand of a sec. I've observed that probably 99% of the time umps get it right.
But even if an ump or ref doesn't get it right what are WE teaching our children if we're so ugly and 99% of the time wrong?
Until next time, be kind, be safe, and don't be ugly.
