Foul Play : Brothers Get Maximum Sentences for Beating Umpire

Two brothers convicted of beating an umpire with a bat and their fists in a brawl during a Long Beach slow-pitch softball game have been sentenced to maximum jail terms.

“I think the judge did a real good job,” umpire Harold Smith said Friday, after Greg Sinsun, 19, and his brother, Benito Sinsun, 21, both of Long Beach, were ordered jailed Thursday by Municipal Court Commissioner George L. Pugsley.

“I played a lot of baseball in my day,” Pugsley said before announcing the sentences. “I played with bad guys and bellyachers. But nobody ever picked up a bat and the ump was never assaulted. This case violates the rules of sportsmanship.”

Pugsley gave Greg Sinsun a one-year jail sentence for misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon, and Benito Sinsun a six-month term for simple assault.

Ejected From Game

The Sinsuns were convicted by a jury of beating Smith after he had ejected Greg Sinsun from a game last fall during an argument that erupted when spectators jeered the brothers’ team about a series of errors made on one play.

Smith, 34, of Bellflower, suffered an injured cheek, bruises and impaired vision in the attack.

“I was hit with a bat on the bone of the eye socket,” he said. “The doctors said if I’d been hit a quarter-inch to the left, the eye socket would have been shattered, and if it had been a quarter-inch to the right, on the temple, I could have been killed.”

The Sinsuns were banned for life by the Long Beach Parks and Recreation Department from playing softball in the city league.

Wife Still Shaken

Smith, who has recovered from his injuries, said his wife, Mary, is still shaken by the incident.

“I can see it in her eyes when I go out (to umpire),” Smith said. “I associate it with the look a police officer gets from his wife when he goes to work. She’s very concerned.”

Smith, a computer operator who began calling ball games to make extra money ($15 a game), said the incident has changed his approach to umpiring.

“I was strict but I’m even stricter now,” he said. “I’ll tell a coach that if he has someone who’s not there to play softball, to send him home.”