Parents brawl at kids’ baseball game in Winter Haven: Are attacks on refs, umpires becoming more common?

Parents brawl at kids’ baseball game in Winter Haven

A youth baseball game erupted into a brawl over the weekend when parents began fighting after an umpire issued a warning, Winter Haven police said. Three men from Kissimmee are facing battery charges; all have been released from jail.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Winter Haven Police say a 21-year-old umpire gave a warning to Marcos Aballi, a 25-year-old coach of one of the teams in the tournament.

 The father of a player on that team, 38-year-old Yosmany Fernandez, started arguing in the stands with the umpire’s father, then threw a punch.

The umpire ran off the field to break up the fight between his dad and Fernandez, when he got punched by the coach, Aballi.

The people accused of the attack are already out of jail.

Police say the people involved in the fight did know each other, and there had been some negative interactions leading up to this.

‘You hate to see it’

What they're saying:

Video of the fight made its way to the CEO of DS Sports’ Events Division. Rob Sitz knows the people who put out this weekend’s tournament in Winter Haven, where the incident happened.

"You hate to see it go to violence in that situation, so it was very disappointing to see the video," said Sitz.

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Sitz also brought up, even if there are more of these fights happening – there are also more games than there have ever been. Thousands of them. When you consider the actual ratio of fights to games, it’s still extremely uncommon.

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"Obviously, there's always going to be disagreements on whether they made the right call or the wrong call," said Sitz. "You just gotta treat those officials with respect."

Other incidents

This is only the latest incident of this kind in youth sports.

This past October, FOX 35 reported on a parent being banned from watching Pop Warner games after police say he got into it with a coach and commissioner.

In 2024, FOX 35 reported on kids’ roughhousing getting a little too rough at a Spring Training game.

In 2023, an assistant Little League coach threatened to shoot another team’s coach.

And that same year, FOX 35 News talked with an umpire who a parent punched and knocked clean out, Rei Mora.

"It needs to stop, because I just got hit. Maybe tomorrow somebody gets killed. Then what?" Mora said.