MONEE, Ill. – A mayor versus an umpire: A baseball game gets out of hand.
The umpire's name is Tim, he's 56 years old and says the mayor of Monee, Illinois broke his jaw in two places. In the mayor’s words, he was just acting in self-defense.
According to WGN TV the altercation started at a baseball field located on school property. Monee, Illinois mayor, Jay Farquhar, allegedly got into an altercation with an umpire at a Little League game. An official from the Monee Baseball and Softball League claims that the alleged incident took place after the second inning over a foul ball and that Farquhar punched the ump.
Farquhar was managing his son's youth team, involving kids as young as 7.
After hearing from witnesses, a league official says Farquhar has been suspended from managing for a year and is prohibited from attending games as well.
The village manager, Reuben Bautista, says Monee police have referred the matter to the Will County Sheriffs Department for further investigation.
By way of Facebook, Mayor Farquhar says he acted in self-defense after the ump grabbed his arm:
"...There is no excuse for striking an official...in retrospect, it was a reaction which lacked comprehensively best judgement for the coach (me) to defend myself against the physical escalation of the umpire as such I willingly left the field and recognize the need to suspend my helping to coach that team the rest of this season."
The umpire is scheduled to have surgery tomorrow and as part of recovery he expects his jaw will have to be wired for the next four weeks.
