In 2013, Rocky Nickel made one of the most important calls of his umpire career, only this one took place beyond the boundaries of a baseball field.

For over three decades, Nickel served as an official in multiple sports, including baseball, hockey, volleyball and basketball, to list just a few.

It was that multi-sport experience that led him to develop the yellow card system and address the lack of range often seen in baseball sanctions.

“In all other sports…there has always been a way to sanction participants without fully ejecting them from the game. In baseball, there wasn’t any way to do that for a minor infraction. It was you either had nothing or you had an ejection, while all the other sports have a queue like there should be,” said Nickel.

Faced with only the two options it forced young umpires to make calls against adult coaches and spectators, which would sometimes make them uncomfortable or leave them dealing with behavioural issues from those individuals. 

That reoccurring mistreatment would then affect the number of active umpires due to a high-turnover rate.

So, Nickel compiled a package and presented it to the umpire committee at Baseball Sask’s Annual General Meeting in November of 2013. After receiving a positive response, he brought the idea to former provincial supervisor with Baseball Sask, Trevor Drury. The pair then sorted out the finer details and received final support from the board.

Under the timeline of wanting the new program implemented by the upcoming season, Nickel ensured it was shared amongst the baseball community as quickly as possible.

“We put together a PowerPoint presentation for the umpire clinics that year, then we had the yellow cards made up and handed out at the clinics. When we were done doing that, we put together a package at the clinic explaining why we were doing it and how to use it. Then we put together an online notice…and so that was all done after the four months following the AGM.”

After months of work, the new sanction system was officially introduced at the top of the 2013 baseball season.

It provides two distinct levels of discipline to deal with misconduct. In addition, umpires are provided with a set of guidelines to determine what sanction should be applied for each misconduct.

The newly developed yellow card would be applied when actions contrary to good manners, moral principles, or expressing contempt took place during a game. While major misconduct remained worthy of an ejection. 

And as with any new sanction being introduced to a sport that has followed specific system for years, it was met with some push back, specifically from senior level teams.

“When it first implemented at senior level baseball – because it was something that was totally new – they kind of laughed at it and didn’t think it was important… because all of a sudden we were giving senior players a yellow card,” said Nickel.

Juxtaposing their senior level counterparts were the 18 and under teams, who took to the new sanction without question. According to Nickel, a player or coach would receive a yellow card and immediately make a correction.

Now, 13 years since first being introduced to the Saskatchewan baseball scene, the program remains a major part of the game and continues to follow the outline first created by Nickel.

First-year youth umpire, 11-year-old Tyson Dyck, is grateful for the development of the program. He notes he hasn’t had to use the yellow card yet in his career, he’s come close, but he likes having the option available, believing that it allows umpires to keep their focus on the game rather than on the comments of coaches and spectators.

“It makes me a little more comfortable, but adults shouldn’t be arguing with kid umpires anyway.” shared Dyck.