It is with sad news that I must let you know that a former Distric 13 Umpire, Jef Braden passed away this weekend.  This was according to an umpire group in Clearwater who knew him.  Jeff apparently was in Fort Myers, Fl and returned to his home in Arkansas.  At this time this is all the information I have. 

 Rich Bavilacqua

It is one thing for Little League to say that for liability or other reasons, they are requiring an adult to be on the field umpiring. I may not agree, but it is their organization, and they get to make the rules. If I don’t like it, I can protest (which I have) and choose to either do something else with my time should my protest be to no avail (as I suspect it will) or follow their rules and make the best of it.

That’s the way it works in the world – the guys who run the company get to make the rules. But, for Little League to issue the press release below, saying that allowing a teenager to umpire without an adult on the field is “grossly unfair to the child”, amongst other things, is just insulting to those of us who have done so in good faith and with good results – AND WITH NO ONE FROM LITTLE LEAGUE SAYING IT WAS NOT PERMITTED – for years. 

I have seen teenagers umping games alone in Little League for decades. If Little League now wants to cover its butt and not allow Junior umps to work alone, fine, but don’t cast it as being a matter of fairness to “children.” 

It would also be nice to have someone representing Little League who doesn’t choose to demean teenagers by calling them “children.” Is that what Little League calls Junior and Big League players? All I know is I took great pleasure training teenagers and young adults to volunteer as umpires. 

It is a shame Little League has gone in this direction.

If you're looking for a way to kill Little League, you should call a woman named Jean Gonzalez of Staten Island, N.Y. I think she's found it.

A little more than five years ago her 12-year-old son, Martin, got a hit and the first-base coach waved him on to second. The problem was, Martin did not generally get many doubles. In fact, he'd never slid in a game before. So when he got to second, he slid clumsily, wrenching his knee, ripping his ACL and tearing his meniscus.

So what did his mom do?

She sued.

She sued the manager. She sued the first-base coach. She sued the local Little League. She sued Little League Baseball, Incorporated. She sued everybody but the kid who cuts the outfield.

She said the manager -- Leigh Bernstein -- hadn't taught Martin the proper way to slide. (The coach said he had.) She said the local Little League had the wrong kind of bases -- Soft Touch detachable bases. (But the bases were on Little League's approved list of bases. They detach when you hit them with too much force.) She said it was everybody's fault but Martin's.

And just over two weeks ago, she settled for $125,000.

This is just an opinion, but I think it would be wonderful if people like Jean Gonzalez and her attorney were tied to the next shuttle and fired into space.

Here's a coach who is volunteering his time to teach kids the dying game of baseball and what does he get for his trouble? A lawsuit hanging over his head for five years.

Here's the local Little League -- New Springville -- trying to do something fun for the kids, at zero profit and thousands of migraines, and what does it get for its efforts? A lawyer of its own and a tugboat of paperwork.

What if little Martin had been beaned? Would his mom have sued the kid who pitched it? The stitcher of the ball? Abner Doubleday?

I called Ms. Gonzalez but she never called back. I called her attorney, Alan Glassman, of Brooklyn. He had to put me on hold a lot. "Parents keep calling wanting me to represent their kid," he said.

Imagine that.

Coach Bernstein played Martin that day because Martin went out for the team. So what's the coach supposed to do, keep the kid on the bench all year? Ms. Gonzalez probably would've sued for that, too. Emotional cruelty, perhaps.

Anyway, it's finally over. Martin is 17 now and in high school. If you're his principal you better have F. Lee Bailey on retainer.