Dear Editor,
Maybe no one wants to hear any complaints about the umpires at this weekend tournament for 11 year old and younger. If I was a coach for the Great Bend team I would be completely embarrassed to invite seven other teams to participate in the tournament and have umpires make the calls that they were making. The game that I was watching both sides were having terrible calls made. When did the strike zone change to be between the shins and the top of the batters heads. I am not stretching the strike zone for the paticular umpire. And it became very difficult for the parents to keep their mouths shut. The umpire over heard some of the comments and got a burr under his ass. He needed more than that.
The kids are taught where the strike zone is and they practice playing this way. Then try to play a game that had very different strike zone became very difficult for them.
The umpire in my opinion was very disrespectful to the kids, the parents, and to Great Bend baseball, and the game of baseball in general. He needs to learn the strike zone or get out of umpiring.
The game needs to be played with the rules as they should be and not the way some disrespectful umpire sees it.
Regan Van Pelt
McPherson