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Just received the harness to replace the original on my Platinum CP. Mere words aren't enough. This. Harness. Is. Beyond. AWESOME. An added feature is that it has been personalized, which is icing on the cake ! Woo hoo ! Thanks @Razzer for the fantastic work, and thanks also to @MadMax for the referral !

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Good question. We will soon be meeting with their new person in charge of the team gear line that includes umpire gear. Our suggestions we will be emphasizing are harness improvement, a lower profile memory foam padding and longer chest protector options. These will most likely not happen for spring 2018 inventory but we are hopeful for fall 2019 for at least the first 2 suggestions. Any other suggestions, do not hesitate and will pass them along.

A play or attempted play is interpreted as a legitimate effort by a defensive player who has possession of the ball to actually retire a runner. This may include an actual attempt to tag a runner, a fielder running toward a base with the ball in an attempt to force or tag a runner, or actually throwing to another defensive player in an attempt to retire a runner. When F9 (the last player in possession) threw the ball, the play was on R2.

Never said that. Staying with the play at 2B has to include some evaluation time (int or not). If an umpire is going to call FPSR, there is no need to see what happens at 1B, but if he decides that there is no interference, the banger at 1B is about to happen (if it hadn't already). 0.75 seconds goes by quick. I have all I can do to see the gloving/out at 2B, then turn to pickup BR approaching 1B. If you can stay with the play at 2B longer and still get the banger at 1B, more power to you. But if I was going to prioritize events, not missing the banger at 1B would be much higher than staying with the potential FPSR at 2B that PU is supposed to get.

at home, on my sofa. Locally, our coach pitch is instructional. We do not officiate this level.

My experience was just slightly the opposite of yours last weekend... I am the plate guy for the RBI Juniors Championship game being played at Santa Ana Valley High School in, you guessed it: Santa Ana. 4 man, 7 inning 9:30am start. Game is moving along ok... 2 hour mark and we are hitting the 7th with the visiting LA Dodgers trailing the AZ team 3-4. Bases loaded and the home team walks in the tying run but the Dodgers can't get over the hump to take the lead... Home team goes down in the 7th and we move on to extra innings... Pretty exciting for a Championship so far. Bottom of 10 and we are still going and getting close to hitting the 3 hour mark. U2 has to leave due to being the plate guy on another field for a 1pm game start so we go to 3 man. Seniors game on the adjacent field ends and now we have a BIG crowd... both of the other teams have moved over to watch plus the majority of their fans as well... that game ended in a 1-0 score in an hour 15-30 so not a lot of drama. Other than getting noisy the fans are actually being supportive of both teams which was refreshing. 12th inning my buddy who worked the Seniors game jumps into our game as U2 (pretty senior Varsity guy in our HS association) so we are back to 4 man. He makes the most brilliant suggestion that if we end the 12th with no winner we take a 5 minute siesta (got to go man!) Home team gets bases loaded with no outs in the bottom of 12... All I am thinking is... hit the ball! Batter hits an amazing dribbler to F1 who throws home for out 1. F2 then fires to F3 for out two... not looking good here! Batter comes to the plate I ring him up for strike 3 on nice breaking ball over the inner half of the plate. Time for the 13th! Come back to the field after a 5 minute restroom break... start the 13th... nothing. 14th inning and we are at the 3:45 mark... visitors go down 1/2/3. Home team gets up... first batter gets out. Batter 2 is HBP. R1 steals 2nd. Batter drills one to left center... watch R2 round 3rd... here he comes. Here comes the ball. There goes the ball up the line. R2 touches home. 14 full innings... 4 hours. Damn... that was a Championship game. Nice part was a couple days later we received an email from the Angels RBI organization who hosted the tournament... they offered 2 tickets to all of the umpires who worked games... the wife and I took the seats and got to watch Trout hit one out on Wednesday against the Nationals.

Just installed and adjusted.... the fit is a huge improvement over the original (which featured that circular plastic gizmo). Outstanding creation, Ray @Razzer. Thanks very much!

I let one line go one time. Good third strike on the corner. Batter takes end of bat and draws a line that touches the side of the plate.

One of my favorite stories I've read here on U-E was written by MidAmUmp. A batter started to draw a line and MidAm informed him that he could stay in the game if he dragged that bat on the ground all the way to the dugout. If the bat left the ground, he would be ejected. Must have been the longest line drawn by a batter in baseball history.

So that's where they're learning it. That's what our Little League does at one level; we only provide umpires for their end of season "fun" tournament, at which point I hustle league gear out to those fields and have them work standard one (or occaisonally two) person mechanics.

Umpiring with my son, 2001-last night

An option to purchase just the lower profile replacement padding to replace the padding in our current protectors would be tremendous. *the statement above was provided by The Department of Redundancy Department.

It did. But I was more referring to the poster that reopened the thread. I see no real issue with reopening a thread (even one that is 2 years old) as long as it is done with a legit question to add to the conversation. The ones that none of is like is when it is reopened by someone just rehashing the 100 answers before him. Make more sense?

@umpstu, I believe Larry Mires also got hired on to the ACCAC this past year. But he did so attending the 2man BBUC. I still have aims to go. But no clue when or which one. Also @hckyosgood30 has a standing offer to me to give me a Mizuno Shovel throat guard when I eventually go. Lol

I've been and would go again if I weren't 58. I did get hired in the ACCAC after attending BBUC and meeting their assigner. I attended the 3 man clinic and it's fantastic. It's kind of weird in that I already umpire with quite a few of the instructors. And almost all of the instructors have been minor league umpires so you'll be getting a leg up if you decide to attend pro school. If you are just wanting to go to a 2 man mechanic school there is a very good clinic in Palm Springs right before season in January run by Brad Hungerford. He's been to pro school, been a pro umpire and has been to regional a whole lot of times. If you want more info on that clinic, Brad is on fb under Bradley Hungerford and I'm sure he would be happy to help you out. Hckysogood or whatever his name is on here is the facilitator and one of the instructors for BBUC. I'm sure he would have no problem talking with you about the BBUC. Just pm him. Hope this helps. And don't wait too long on pro school. They usually choose young umpires for PBUC.

I would say... why not go. I know guys that have gotten hired on to their local college group through BBUC. And if you aren't doing pro school for another year, then why not.

latest joe west article enjoy https://www.si.com/mlb/2017/07/20/joe-west-umpire-major-league-baseball

@MadMax, would 0.5" EVA foam work ?

Can trim it up an dramatically improve the fit:

Look on the Internet. Hundreds of our brethren are smarter than OBR, the MLB crew on the field, the MLB crew in New York, and MLB who denied the protest. Those umpires would still call interference even though there is zero support to do so. So...to answer your question...it's already happening.

ROGER SIGHTING!!!!!!!!

This call gets more difficult the more you try to make your point. I don't agree that it's as difficult as you state. Many calls are more routine, yet more difficult like trying to see a tag from a proper position, yet you're straight-lined. By comparison, two force outs are much easier for me. For you and perhaps others, this is a difficult call. I have no issues with it. We all have our kryptonite.

I have been thinking about your post. I think it hints at an even bigger issue. Too many of us umpires feel the need to "talk" during an argument...to the point where we start arguing/discussing/talking before the coach even opens his mouth. That is, we don't wait to hear what the coach has to say before we feel compelled to open our mouths and start talking. Hell, some of us start talking/yelling while the coach is still walking/jogging toward us. We don't even wait for him to arrive at our location. Those of us that do this (and I used to be one of them) really need to stop doing this. We need to hear what the coach says/argues before we even open our mouth. When we feel the need to be the first one to start talking/yelling we are doing so only after having made an assumption that we know what the coach is going to say...and we all know what happens when we ass-u-me. On more than one occasion I have been on the field when a head coach came out to "argue" (either with me or a partner) and the first words out of his mouth were, "I know you got the call right, we're just playing like crap so I'm out here to show my team that I'm fighting for them," (or something similar) (I'm not making that up...this has happened multiple times in my career). If my partner or I had started yelling/talking to/at the coach before listening to the coach, we wouldn't have had the chance to realize that the coach wasn't even coming out to argue! Additionally, there have been other times when I was 100% sure I knew why the coach was coming out to argue...only to find out that I was wrong. For instance, I once had the Vanderbilt head coach come out and I was sure he was going to argue that the second baseman had come off the bag too quickly in turning a 6-4-3 double-play. I wasn't feeling great about my call. However, lo and behold, his argument was that the batted ball had hit R2...which I knew was not even a remote possibility. If I had opened my mouth first instead of waiting to hear what he had to say...I would have just given the head coach another thing to argue! Anyways (now that I'm off my soap box), if the coach comes out to a standard safe/out play at first base, I'll listen to them. I'll tell them, "I had the ball just beating the runner," or "the runner just beat the throw." I'll let them reply and then I'll say "We'll have to agree to disagree. Now, we need to get the game going." They'll usually give a parting shot (coaches love to have the last word.) Then we go on. I have never had this happen, but if a coach told me, "Well, we saw it differently," then I would probably reply with, "Okay, then we'll have to agree to disagree. Now, Its time to get the game going."

Unless you're a glutton for punishment, or in need of a shower – of beer and/or abuse – you avoid going to Philadelphia games. Worst home-city fans, collectively, in the Four Major Sports. And if we throw in MLS soccer as a fifth, I'm sure they're just as bad.

As a general answer -- if he's saying something that could reasonably be construed as an instruction to his player, it's allowed. That seems to be the case in your play. (An exception *might* be if it was a sudden, loud exclamation right in the middle of the pitcher's motion -- this might then be construed as a phrase or action designed to get the pitcher to balk and that penalty applied.)

@scrounge... don't hold back. Tell us what you really think!

@Aging_Arbiter thanks! My son called a Minor B playoff game the other night and did a real good job. It is cool working games with your kid and seeing him make decisions and run the game. Not bad for only being 13...

Yeah, and I'm 6'1". Same field. It was new in the first picture. and still a pretty cool place. Rancho Buena Vista LL, Vista, CA. The kids even went to Williamsport in '05. Seems like a long time ago when we started our Junior umpire program.