the umpire called her out.. RT if you think she was safe pic.twitter.com/KoVXa4febo
— kayla jasper 🌞🍯💛🌟🌼🌻🌙 (@kaylajayyyy4) March 10, 2017
High school softball isn’t usually a national story. In fact, it takes something rather monumental to generate any level of backlash for something that happens in that particular arena but, over the weekend, something absurd happened in Adamsville, Ala. and it involved the gross negligence of an umpire.
As you can see above, there was a comically bad call at first base and The North Jefferson News shed a bit of light on the situation. The video made the rounds all on its own due to the sheer insanity of the call, but Fultondale High School sophomore Lindsey Harris was the aggrieved party that was called out in erroneous fashion.
Mercifully, it appears Fultondale did enough to win the game in question by a 19-8 margin, but the call was made with real conviction from the first base umpire. In fact, the report indicates that Harris refused to leave first base because, well, she was safe. That didn’t stop the umpire from doubling down, though, as he reportedly told her to “get off the bag so we can play ball.”
High school officiating isn’t usually a full-time gig and, as such, the quality isn’t always great. Still, this is the type of thing that is both hilarious and a bit troubling. It is a (very) good thing that Fultondale picked up a lopsided victory but it would be interesting to sit in on a film review session with the umpire to see just how he feels about being definitively wrong.
(h/t Bleacher Report)
