Kill The Umpire. Seriously.

At a glance, your knee jerk reaction to this would probably be, "this guy is a jerk." But hold on a second. First off, a lot of these umpires stink. It's hard to stand idly by while your grandson is getting called out on strikes where the pitches are about a foot outside. I've seen it many times. Kids can be traumatized by this. Instead everyone is worried about the umpire and his broken nose. If an umpire doesn't want his nose broken, let him get his eyes checked for Chrissake.

Even in professional baseball, these umpires are just no good. During one particular tirade with an umpire, Orioles manager Earl Weaver headed to the dugout screaming, "I'm going to check the rule-book on that," to which the umpire replied, "here, use mine." Weaver said, "that's no good - I can't read braille." The guy was blind. For real! You can look it up. Look at Pete Rose here. He knew the score.

The second and more significant point, why is this umpire's life and safety more valuable than mine? This Alabama law says that if you assualt an "official" it's a felony but if you punch out an ordinary citizen like me, that's just a misdemeanor. WHAT? If anything these umpires are LESS valuable members of society than your average citizen. ANYONE can go out there and blow calls all day. Takes no special talent at all. With all the technology they have today, they should review the replay and if the umpire got it wrong, too bad. The only umpires who deserve legal protection are those who get the calls RIGHT. And they are few and far between.

As reported by Birmingham Fox affiliate WBRC -- and noted by USA Today, among other outlets -- Jefferson County, Ala., resident Darryl Keeton was arrested after attacking an umpire following a youth softball game at Mt. Olive ballpark, the local baseball field. After a game spent heckling the official, Keeton took matters further by attacking the official in the parking lot outside the ballpark, punching him in the face and leaving him with a bloody nose.

Because Keeton was attacking a sports official and not a normal member of the public, a Alabama law stipulates that brief attack must yield Class C felony charges which could land the grandpa as many as 10 years in prison.

"A bloody nose most of the time will get you a misdemeanor, and that's wrong, but yeah, there's a law on the books that if you assault an official it's a Class C felony," Jefferson County Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Randy Christian told WBRC. "That's a serious crime, and it should be."

Keeton's assault on the official was limited to a first punch thanks to the timely intervention of an off-duty Birmingham police officer, but by that time Keeton -- who was released on bond shortly after his arrest -- had already done enough to land himself felony charges and thoroughly embarrass himself in the process.

"You let the kids and the coaches work that out, that's part of life," Sgt. Christian told WBRC. "But if he's not embarrassed about that, I'm certainly embarrassed for him."

[yahoo! sports]