Spectators at a Saturday morning youth baseball game reported that a volunteer umpire incorporated an elaborate, full-body pantomime routine to eject a crying third grader from the field.
Spectators at a Saturday morning youth baseball game reported that local volunteer umpire Mark Dunlap incorporated an elaborate, full-body vaudevillian routine to eject a weeping nine-year-old boy from the field.
The incident occurred in the bottom of the fourth inning after right fielder Leo Gable, who was already sobbing audibly due to a called strike three, muttered that the pitch was too high. Rather than simply directing the child back to the dugout, Dunlap reportedly ripped off his protective mask, took three deliberate paces toward the pitcher's mound, spun on his heel, and executed a sweeping, acrobatic thumb-jerk that required him to plant his left foot in the dirt for maximum leverage.
Parents sitting in the folding chairs behind home plate noted that the forty-eight-year-old accountant held the ejection pose for a full five seconds, staring intensely into the middle distance while the forty-pound child hiccuped and wiped his nose on his oversized batting glove. Witnesses confirmed that Dunlap accompanied the visual spectacle with a booming, three-syllable vocalization of the word "out" that echoed off the municipal tennis courts.
Following the prolonged freeze-frame, Dunlap slowly holstered an imaginary pistol, completely ignoring the fact that the ejected player had already dropped to his knees to look for a lost piece of bubblegum. The umpire then retrieved a small whisk broom from his back pocket and performed a frantic, physical-comedy routine of dusting off home plate before aggressively pointing toward the parking lot.
The integrity of the game relies on absolute authority, which means projecting your voice from the diaphragm and ensuring your mechanics read clearly to the cheap seats.
At press time, Dunlap was seen tipping his cap to a completely silent section of bleachers and bellowing for the next batter to step up, while the ejected nine-year-old slowly dragged his aluminum bat through the gravel toward his mother's minivan.