Little League Game Devolves Into 50-Parent Rumble
Four separate law enforcement agencies were called to a Maryland Little League game on Tuesday night after as many as 50 parents and league officials got into a violent melee.
The trouble began after Sharpsburg won 13-9, eliminating their bitter rival Hagerstown's West End from the Little League tournament. West End parents immediately began grumbling that the umpires had skewed calls in Sharpsburg's favor.
From the Herald Mail report:
[West End parent Nichole] Valentine alleged that a man who umpired a previous game [then] firmly grabbed and bruised her left arm, shoved her into a fence and used a profanity in ordering her to leave the ballpark. She said her fiance stepped in, along with other Sharpsburg men. One man pushed her three or four times, trying to force her to leave, according to Valentine. As she, her son and fiance tried to get in their vehicle, about nine men were circled around them, screaming at them, she said.
Millie Myers, the grandmother of a West End player, said she saw a man approach her daughter and grandson, swinging his arms and screaming at the West End group to leave. Myers said she stepped up with her hands raised and told the man to stop. When her hands landed on the man's chest, he swore at her and pushed her, she said.
West Enders also claim to have heard the other side shout "a derogatory term for homosexuals" at their kids — all aged 7 and 8 — and that they should "go back to the ghetto." (Several of the West End team members are African-American.)
Sharpsburg parents counter that it was the West End parents who had gotten out of hand, with one allegedly threatening to "slash" a 13-year-old who tried to intervene. [Herald-Mail.com, photo via Shutterstock]