Josh Cordova and his family were invited to Coors Field by major league umpire Chris Guccione to see the Los Angeles Dodgers play the Colorado Rockies. Guccione, who\u2019s from Salida, Colorado, reached out to Josh after hearing about a game between 7-year-olds that deteriorated into an adult-fueled brawl on the field over a disputed call. Video of the fight at Westgate Elementary School in Lakewood went viral.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was scary, not only for me but for the 7-year-olds there,\u201d Josh said as he sat next to Guccione in the Rockies\u2019 dugout before the game. \u201cI don\u2019t want them to have the idea that baseball is like that. I want them to have the belief that baseball is a great game and for them to learn to love the game, just as I have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guccione, a big league ump for 20 years, said he started umpiring at about the same age as Josh but had never seen or experienced anything like the all-out fighting among parents, coaches or spectators that Josh had witnessed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a perfect opportunity to reach out to Josh and not only to him but his family and to say to him, \u2018I\u2019m proud of you and I\u2019m rooting for you and what you did is the right thing,\u2019\u201d Guccione said. \u201cI\u2019m super happy for him, and I wanted to encourage him to keep going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh participated in the umpires\u2019 pregame conference, and he delivered the lineup cards at home plate to Rockies manager Bud Black and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, both of whom had hugs and encouraging words for Josh.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor him to try to earn some extra money and umpire young kids and for it to turn out that way, I just find it very hard to justify the adults\u2019 actions because as the role model for these young kids, there couldn\u2019t be a worse example set,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cSo for these kids, that\u2019s where my heart goes out, to these young kids who have to witness their parents act that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guccione also gave Josh his umpire jersey and a chest protector, which Josh said he\u2019ll start using right away to replace his old one, which is worn out.<\/p>\n
Josh has continued to play baseball and work as an umpire. He said he was part of the crew that officiated the youth league\u2019s championship game on Saturday. He plans to continue, he said, because of his \u201cpassion for being around the game and helping kids grow, as I did in the same organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bear Creek Junior Sports Association banned the teams involved in the June 15 fracas for the rest of the season, and Lakewood police said a dozen people have been cited for their involvement in the brawl.<\/p>\n
Josh thanked Guccione and the many others who have contacted him with messages of support, including several parents involved in the fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very appreciative for everyone that\u2019s reached out to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cordova and his family were invited to Coors Field by major league umpire Chris Guccione to see the Los Angeles Dodgers play the Colorado Rockies. Guccione, who\u2019s from Salida, Colorado, reached out to Josh after hearing about a game between 7-year-olds that deteriorated into an adult-fueled brawl on the field over a disputed call. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[470,4605,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-baseball","tag-colorado-rockies","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65815"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}