Sheriff’s deputy, umpire arrested after brawl at teens’ baseball tournament in Mississippi
A little league baseball tournament in Starkville, Mississippi took an ugly turn Sunday as a coach started a fistfight with an umpire.
Darrell Holley, a lieutenant with the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Office and a coach of a Starkville under-14 team, got into a brawl with umpire Jeff Akins after a Grand Slam baseball tournament. The fight started shortly after the end of the third game of the day, which SPC Select 14U, the team Holley coaches, lost 13-5.
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Video of the altercation shows Holley appearing to elbow Akins near the pitcher’s mound, leading Akins to retaliate with a push before the two began punching each other. Holley’s son also got involved in the fight, per the Commercial Dispatch.
Both men were arrested and charged with misdemeanor fighting, per Starkville police.
Holley has since been terminated by the sheriff’s office, according to a statement shared with local TV station WCBI. Sheriff Shank Phelps cited a zero-tolerance policy for Holley’s conduct in the statement.
Tournament director Mike Narmour told the Commercial Dispatch that there was “no place for” that kind of fighting and the conflict was caused by “stupidity all the way around.” Narmour was away from the tournament when the brawl broke out.
“Grand Slam Mississippi is sickened and devastated by these types of events, and there is no place for this whatsoever in youth sports or adult sports,” Narmour said. “There’s blame for the umpire, there’s big time blame for the coach and the [involved] kids of that team. There’s no right for that and there’s no place for that in front of those kids.”
