Indiana vs. Michigan

It was a strange and long weekend in Bloomington this past weekend as Michigan took two of three from IU.

There were quite a few issues that happened this weekend and I will be addressing a couple of them in separate blog posts this morning.

Worked this weekend with Jim Jackson and Sal Giacomantonio.  We had a good time despite the long games and even got a chance to attend the Final Four in Indianapolis on Saturday night.  Two good umpires and even better guys.

Michigan won on Friday 16-10 in 10 innings.  The crew chief (Jimmy) could do nothing about the length of this game.  It was just not a very good baseball game.  We were on a 4 hour pace from the get go and it just got worse.  Final game time was 4:26 and trust me when I tell you it felt like 8:26.  A couple of bench clearings....a little smack talk...a pitch behind a hitter's head.  We had a little bit of everything in this one.

When you have situations come up in games you find out just how good of an umpire you are.  All of us can call outs and safes and balls and strikes.  It is how an umpire reacts in a tough situation that separates the men from the boys.

On Saturday, Sal had the only sane game of the weekend...a 6-4 Michigan win in 2:43.  Thank God.  No issues and not much said, even after all the crap we had on Friday.  I upset the Michigan 1st base coach when I told his boys to get back in the dugout and quit giving my crew chief cheap shots.  He thought I should stay out of his dugout and leave his players alone.  I thought his players should keep their ass in the dugout with their mouths shut.  I win.

Then came my plate job on Sunday.  Yuck.  26-6 Indiana.  Enough said??  I don't think so.  Let's talk about the fifth inning, where the Hoosiers decided to have their entire offensive production of the season in one inning.  17 batters came to the plate.  17!!!???  Are you kidding me?  11 runs scored on 12 hits.  I thought that half inning lasted three hours by itself.

It was a miracle from God that the game lasted only 3:09.  And as Forrest Gump would say....."That's all I have to say about that."

Five games this week.  D3 at Franklin College on Tuesday.  D2 at Victory Field on Wednesday.  Then it is off to one of my favorite college towns ever.  Athens, OH this weekend for a MAC series with Ohio University hosting W. Michigan.

Should be an interesting week.  Stay tuned.