Perky League

The Perkiomen Valley Twilight League has been around for about 70 years now. It is a Semi-Pro wood bat baseball league that has gotten very competitive over the years. The "Perky" league is in fact one of the best leagues around and has been for quite some time. They have produced some pros and a dynasty was formed there in the Norristown A's. I have been playing in this league since 2001. Each year the pitching, hitting, fielding, and all around competition gets better and better. One thing, on the other hand, consistently gets worse and worse each year. That is the umpires. I am not being biased because I am a player in this league, but I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that these umpires flat out suck.

For those of you that know me I am not exactly calm when it comes to playing baseball, but when I am out there giving 100% I expect my counterparts to do the same. This is playoff time in the perky league, my team was just eliminated and the league is in the semi finals right now. I read something yesterday that I just could not believe and I thought that I would prove my point of how incompetent and arrogant these umpires are in this league.

Game one of the semi finals was hosted by Harleysville on Monday night at 5:45. Keep in mind that this is a twilight league and Harleysville's field does not have lights. Harleysville breezed through the regular season for the most part and were playing host to Nor Gwyn, who is the 5 seed. It is 8-6 in the top of the 7th in a 7 inning game. Nor Gwyn comes up to bat and makes 3 outs. Going into the bottom half of the 7th Harleysville is down 2. They score a run, so it is now 8-7 with one out and the bases loaded in the last inning. The umpires in the game get together while the next batter is coming up to the plate and decide to call the game due to darkness. They said it was for the safety of everyone and it was too dark. Well being that it is a twilight league, the rules are that whenever the game is called it is over. The game will not be continued the next day. So Harleysville lost the game because the game reverted back to the 6th inning (the last full inning that was completed). This is the semi finals! Is this not ridiculous? I could see if it were the regular season, no big deal, but this is the playoffs! There was 1 out already in the bottom half of the last inning. Chances are the game will be over within the next 5-10 minutes, and the umpires blew it. You have to let the teams play out the rest of the inning.

Its a shame that the umpires can have that big of an impact on the game. For as good of a league this is the umpires really leave a bad impression on the league. The commissioner really needs to look into this and make some changes if he wants this league to be around for years to come.