To Eject or Not to Eject?

Last week, I was umpiring a little league baseball game in the Des Moines area. The two teams were comprised of 11 and 12 year olds who were clearly still learning the fundamentals of baseball. 

During the bottom of the sixth inning, the home team went ahead by one run in this 7 inning ball game. With runners on 2nd and 3rd base and 2 outs, the "star" player of the team came to bat. When I refer to him as the "star," he was the largest player on the team and extremely over-weight for his age. I do not wish to discriminate against a 12 year old, however, this was a hefty lad who could lay off the chips and maybe pick up soccer when he isn't playing baseball. The kid ended up hitting a line drive to center which got passed the center fielder. As the batter approached 3rd base, the fielder had fielded the ball and was preparing to throw the ball to his shortstop. The batter continued towards home and the ball was thrown to the catcher, who caught the ball when the batter was 2/3 of the way down the 3rd base line. As the catcher tagged the batter/runner, the batter/runner lowered his shoulder slightly and ran straight through the catcher without slowing down.

At this point, I called the batter/runner out and ejected him from the ball game for running through the catcher and lowering his shoulder. Since I was working this game alone, I was out of breath from covering all the bases. I approached the ejected player's coach to explain the ejection to her. Her assistant coach joined and I hastily explained my reasoning for ejecting her player. She went on to give me a sob story about how the boy was scared to slide and was not intending to hurt the catcher. I explained that though I understood he wasn't trying to hurt the catcher, he still ran him over and clearly lowered his shoulder. She went on tell me how this would "just wreck his day" by ejecting him, but I stood firm in my decision and told her that it was best that he learned to slide now, rather than get ejected when he was in high school.

I feel that I handled this situation properly, making sure that I did not make a scene by ejecting him (since these are 12 year olds) and explaining the ruling to the coaches. In the end though, was it really necessary to toss a kid playing in a rec baseball league? Some may say yes, some may disagree. It is necessary not only for the umpires to know the rules, but also to enforce the rules. If these rules are not enforced, we end up doing a disservice to the players by not teaching and preparing them for the next levels of baseball. If I failed to eject the kid and let him continue playing, would he remember being called out for running over the catcher? Doubtful. Now, the lesson has been emphasized, and hopefully he will get over his fear of sliding and avoid contact with the catcher.