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Don Briggs, umpire ejects entire crowd out of the stadium
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by JeffHuang | June 13, 2009 at 04:21 pm
1798 views | 0 Recommendations | 3 comments
In Iowa, Don Briggs, an umpire for the Winfield-Mount Union and West Burlington baseball game ejected the entire crowd of more than 100 fans for being unruly.
Don Briggs had no problem with the athletes, but thought the fans were being unruly for yelling and arguing where he then thought to eject everyone for "misbehaving." Briggs also called the police as a precaution but no arrests were made.
Umpires ejecting players and managers are common, but an umpire ejecting an entire crowd is definitely rare.
However, West Burlington Superintendent James Sleister said he didn't see any unusual behavior and said he thought the umpire overreacted.
The game resumed after a 40-minute delay. West Burlington won 12-11.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 06:02 on June 16th, 2009
Ya know I don't think he over reacted. My son plays on a Majors team in Iowa and last night I was wishing the umpire could eject the other teams parents and some of the players. Mind you these kids are no older then 15, but wow, come on. It's not like it is a professional game here. These games are supposed to be fun for kids. At one point the umpire was trying to help out one of the kids and the kid threw the bat at him, to me that is disrespectful and he needed an attitude adjustment. Why can't some parents just sit back and enjoy the game?
at 06:42 on June 16th, 2009
The superintendent was not even at the game, so his opinion is worthless. It's the administrations job to control the crowd, if no one is there to do that then it falls on the home team coach. The coach failed to control the crowd so the ump was forced to throw them out. We've seen plenty of videos of parents going nuts and things turning violent, if this is what the ump felt he needed to do to unsure that this event remained a safe venue for a hs sporting then I applaud him.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/don-briggs-umpire-ejects-_n_215288.html
at 21:13 on June 16th, 2009
I was at my older sons junior league, when an umpire came to the bleachers and warned the crowd that if they didn't calm down, that he would remove any and all fans in the stands. I have to admit that their were a couple of fans that were getting a little carried away. I quickly left the stands as I wanted to see the rest of the game. The umpire has the right to remove any and all unruly fans. Most of the time, the umpires will warn the coach of the unruley side and tell him that he will be ejected if he can't calm them down. That is little league rules.