2-for-3 is good at the plate, but it sucks in the field

Cal Raleigh broke an 0-for-30-something slump earlier tonight in Your Seattle Mariners' win in Houston. I'm hoping that I break out of my own slump of sorts next time I'm out on the field umpiring.

On the heels of last Wednesday's mistakes, Monday night at Cap Hill there was other weirdness. I had three games, and the first two were fine. They featured some of my favored teams and included a couple of firsts for me, including umping my first shutout, which in rec league softball is a rarity indeed. The Superstars beat the Pancake Batters (Capitol Hill edition) 24-0. Freaky. I also had to have a team adjust their lineup for having too many women bat in a row. Too many dudes in a row happens all the time, but it was a welcome first to have a team with so many women on it that they had to stagger them more than every third batter.

Anyway, first two were fine, even though I continued to have issues with being quick on the draw. You'd think after eight years of this I'd be better at that, but not yet. The only time it resulted in a wrong call I was able to reverse it right away, so it was just embarrassing, but it's a bad habit I have to break.

Game three, though.

That one pitted Pitch Slap (a not-as-clever-as-they-think team name) against the Chop Zone Outlaws (a truly inspired team name). The Outlaws I like a lot, I've gotten to be friendly with a few of them and they're always fun and trouble-free. The other guys have been around for years and I'm reasonably acquainted with them, too, but just as they've never been a favorite, nor have they ever been a problem for me. Never got any flak from them. Until Monday, when I heard not one complaint out of them, not two, but several—on dumb stuff, too. A close call at first went against them and I got an earful about how it wasn't remotely close (say what?) and the outrage was outsized even if the call had been wrong (and we don't have replay and there's just one of me, so on close ones like that we'll never know). At the other team's suggestion, I overturned that one in the name of keeping the peace (it helped that the score was lopsided). I got flak for calling a down-the-middle pitch a strike, with claims that it was over the batter's head when it crossed the plate at stomach level. I got flak for resisting those complaints. I got flak for something else they didn't like that I never conclusively identified. I suspect PS was cranky because they were getting the tar beat out of them, but it befuddled me nonetheless.

Anyway, all that got in my head to the point where I really did screw up later in the game. It's a minor thing that didn't affect the score in the slightest, but I found myself being way late on calling a ball out of play—because the catcher was still talking to me about the prior dustup—and then having to make a call on where to place runners when I hadn't paid a lick of attention to where they had been (and thus what they were then entitled to). I made a guess, PS got cranky and yelled at me again, and I owned it that I screwed up and didn't see and went to reverse the call, but damage was done and there was no restoring confidence.

We finished the game, PS made a valiant attempt at a comeback in the 7th but still lost handily, and nobody from their dugout offered to help me pack up. Unsurprisingly.

For what it's worth, the Outlaws thought I'd gotten nothing wrong at all, but whether any of the calls were incorrect or not, I still failed in my mind because (a) I let grousing get to me, and (b) as such I wasn't watching what I should have been on a later play and exacerbated a bad situation.

I left the field feeling quite annoyed with myself and grateful that I don't have another shift until Sunday. Give me time to reclaim my damaged calm, to paraphrase Jayne from Firefly.

Also, because we were running late all evening (hazards of a nice day, clearing people off the field takes a while), I barely had any opportunity to say hi to a couple of favorite players before or after the middle game and after we were done I only had the chance to vent a bit with Meg, a fave from the Outlaws, but missed nerding out some with Jared, who was wearing a Punisher T-shirt; The Punisher is probably my very least favorite Marvel property, but the character does feature in the Daredevil TV show that just wrapped its season and I wanted to ask Jared's opinion. First-world problems, am I right?

Anyhow, Sunday I have another brutal five-gamer to do, but at least it isn't at Green Lake so I'll have some shade at least part of the day. Then a three-gamer Tuesday and a one-gamer (barely worth it!) on Thursday and nothing next weekend because of Memorial Day. Monday I have M's tickets with Dave, so I miss out on a potential three other games, but right now that's just fine with me. I feel like I'm worthy of being benched for a few days.