The fan was from Belgrade, but he could have been from any town in the country.

Right from the start, he was not happy with the umpires during Sunday night’s championship game of the Gallatin Valle Posse Roy McCauley Memorial Tournament in Three Forks. With the Butte Muckers leading 2-0 over the Belgrade Bandits B in the bottom of the second inning, the Muckers put on a double steal.

The throw to second was a close one, but the player for the Muckers (my son) was called safe by the umpire. It was the kind of play where every Butte fan thought he was safe, while every Belgrade fan knew he was out.

Those are the kind of plays that make the game exciting, and the umpires in American Legion Baseball do not get to challenge plays to the MLB command center in New York.

The angry fan, who was sitting just a few feet from me, let the young umpire have it. Even though he was in the grandstands behind home plate, he figured he clearly had a better view than the umpire who was a couple of feet from the tag.

“That’s terrible,” the fan yelled, opening his arms up to demonstrate his point. “Open your damn eyes.”

I looked at the guy, kind of amazed by his anger at a kids’ game — and in the first inning, no less. I just rolled my eyes, but I thought he reached the point where he should have at least been warned by the umpires or tournament officials that his actions could get him sent packing.

I have not called a single technical foul in three seasons as a basketball official, and I would have thrown him out of the game if he yelled like that at me or my partner.

After the dust settled and they eyes stopped rolling, the guy would not let the call go.

“We have three blind mice out there,” he yelled.

That’s when I decided it was time to step up and play the role of Bugs Bunny to the angry fan’s Yosemite Sam. I did not give him Bugs’ trademarked “Ahhh shaddap,” but my comments had the same sentiment. And probably the same tone.

“You know, you can sign up to be an umpire,” I told the guy.

 “Yeah, maybe I should,” he shot back immediately.

My wife elbowed me to tell me to not get into a fight. Some guy from behind us said something like, “hey now, c’mon guys,” as if there were about to be a fight, and as if, somehow, I was equally at fault.

“It is not an easy job,” I said, “and this is exactly why we have a shortage of officials.”

Again, my wife gave me a look as if to tell me to shut up. I am sure that some of the fans sitting around us were thinking the same thing.

Given the chance to relive that uncomfortable moment, however, I would do it the exact same way. That guy needed to be told to shut up.

Since the guy, who I’m pretty sure was bigger than me, only uttered a few more comments, almost under his breath, the rest of the game, I feel that my words were effective.

The only thing I really heard him say the rest of the game was to repeat his earlier statement that, “We have three blind mice out there.”

If your go-to line for heckling is to reference a nursery rhyme that dates back to the 1600s, by the way, you should probably leave the banter for someone else. That, though, is a whole other story.

I was right when I told the guy that umpiring baseball is not an easy job. In Major League Baseball, video replay challenges are basically a 50/50 proposition. That means that the best umpires in the world get a lot of close plays wrong.

We also see a lot of bad calls on balls and strikes because tracking a baseball on a pitch is not an easy thing to do. Plus, sometimes we are talking about a fraction of an inch difference between a ball and a strike.

Four umpires are used for regular-season games in the majors. They add two more for playoff games. In addition, they have the replay crew in New York on standby to go through each close play frame-by-frame in super-slow motion.

Then they still get it wrong a lot of the time.

So, how do we expect that two umpires covering the entire field are supposed to get every call right? Even more, how do we expect them to make better calls when we constantly yell at them?

Also, how is it possible to get that mad about a B level Legion Baseball tournament? Do you remember who won that tournament last year?

Neither do I. And I was there.

It is well documented that we have a nationwide shortage of officials in every youth sport. It is well documented that most refs quit after three years — or less. It is also well documented that, far and away, the No. 1 reason officials quit is because they cannot take the verbal — and sometimes physical — abuse from fans.

We all know this is wrong. Every single person reading this knows it is wrong. But we never do anything about it.

Some of us will yell at the umpire or referee the next time we go to a game. Even if it is a T-ball game.

Part of that reason is people know they can yell at the officials without being called out for it. Our collective silence has normalized the berating of officials. It is as if we have deputized rudeness.

Admittedly, me calling out that baseball fan made an uncomfortable situation even more awkward. It was something we do not see at every game. We hardly ever see it.

It was not, however, the first time it happened at a Butte Muckers game this season. At the Butte tournament played over Father’s Day weekend, the girlfriend of a young umpire from Dillon took exception at how a group of fans was berating the two umpires in the last game of the long day.

So, she told them to shut up. Since she had been taking advantage of the low-priced beverages at the beer garden, she was not very diplomatic about it, either.

She was also very persistent, telling the same group of men to put a sock in it every time they spoke out about the umpires. It was a turntable moment for the angry fans. It was kind of like when Jerry Seinfeld went to the heckler’s job site to heckler the heckler.

Eventually, one of the fans went to the press box to ask the announcer (me) if tournament officials could do something about this heckler of the hecklers.

All I could do was stare at the guy and say to myself, “Oh, you mean to tell me that the 22-year-old blonde girl in the Daisey Duke shorts is being mean to you five grown men? Quick, somebody call 911.”

I did not get the young women’s name, but she is a hero because she started a trend to fight back against the fans who drive away our sports officials. Even if it might have been alcohol educed, she made a difference that night.

She got those guys to stop yelling at the officials — and to turn into kindergarten tattle tales. She also likely made a few other fans a little gun shy about spouting off themselves.

She might have also inspired other people to stand up for our officials during the games. Maybe that is why I was able to muster up the gall to call the fan out for his over-the-top comments. Hopefully those who witnessed or who are reading about the incident will follow suit.

Whether we like it or not, those of us who stay quite are just as guilty as the ones who scream at the top of their lungs. So, next time you are at a game and you see a fan (or fans) berating the officials, do not just sit back and be silent.

Step up and play Bugs Bunny to their Yosemite Sam.

 — Bill Foley, who uses Bugs Bunny as a role model just about every day of his life, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.