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Another sighting…Nick Mahrley

Thanks for bringing that up. I help my local association with clinic training and local association meetings. I'm coming up with presentation topics for next season and one of them is consistent rules enforcement from a coaches perspective - with specific examples. While coaches whining "that hasn't been called all year!" isn't always believable, coaches get frustrated when legitimate and obvious rule violations that have NEVER been called are then addressed by an umpire mid or late season. Then it really can be an issue in the playoffs, especially the later rounds with officials are under added scrutiny.

Hopefully they'd at least call it a foul ball.

The inconsistency is an amalgamation of all three of those things equally...33.33% to each of those items. As for the rules you cited, I grab those. I know people will disagree with the enforcement of wristbands on belts but, to me, it's about the slippery slope. Well, if I allow that equipment to not be legally and properly worn, what else do I have to allow? (The industry could fix this by packaging and marketing those as wrist/belt bands but, I digress...) As for the common, "He's been doing that all season..." or the garden variety, "This wasn't a problem last week..." well, that's simple. "Coach, this is my first time umpiring your team this season." or, "Coach, I wasn't here last week." You don't say the next obvious thing. You don't NEED to say the next obvious thing after saying either of those statements. The implication is...had you been there, it would have been called then, too. As for your illegal pitch, FED 6-1-2...After the pitcher starts the movement to pitch, the pitcher must continue the motion without interruption or alteration. As a caveat, in a NON-scholastic, NON-tournament, and or NON-showcase NFHS game, I will bring this to the attention of the head coach DURING warm ups. "Coach, your pitcher is not continuing his windup delivery motion without interruption or alteration. With no runners on, that is an illegal pitch and a ball would be awarded to the batter. With runners on, that is a balk and all runners would be awarded one base." Does your association have regular meetings? Do you have a rules interpreter and or a training director? These kinds of inconsistencies make great topics for association meetings. It gets all the umpires on the same page and calling it the same way. ~Dawg

Please take the discussion to the Galatic-Empire.com web site.

It means you need a Mirage as your one and only 😁

I’ve had a guy hit his knees and cover his ducking head probably 30 feet from the bag - that’s not a veer or a slide - but unless the throwing lane was supposed to be two feet off the ground, there’s nothing there. Spirit of rule vs letter of law. A slight duck near the bag? Yeah, grab it.

"That restaurant's food is horrible" "Yeah. And the portions are so small!"

Reminds me of one time when as the coach left the field, in a fall ball game, that I ejected him from... "you are like a prostitute. you both get paid and you both suck." Kinda fits nicely in with the topic of this thread... don't you think?

Mid American Advanced in Kansas City, MO- In September.. I'm going to guess 9/17-9/20

To Dawg's handling of air traffic control . . . I don't think you missed the ejection, as much as I want to. I've always handled these cases with "Coach, I'm issuing the warning. If anybody does anything to engage in any play like that, they go and your assistant goes retroactively." That said, if a game has already been chippy or aggressive (or even passive-aggressive), I would have no problem going straight to the dump button.

Absolutely. This doesn't even have to be negative. You or a partner may know that a particular coach uses the player-DH rule or likes to squeeze with R2 & R3, or any other uncommon situation in your area. But you can definitely discuss coaches who may be a problem or rivalry games or teams with bad blood. As an AD, I've reached out to officials, usually football or basketball, when a game was going to have heightened intensity. Having both coached and umpired, I've had umpires tell me that they pre-gamed for my 1st & 3rd offensive plays and my propensity to re-enter my DH and re-enter the player in who's place he was hitting (which usually got arguments from confused opposing coaches).

What do you guys think about reviewing whatever experiences you've had with either coach or sharing things you're aware of about a coach? Looking at it conversely...I want to know what I'm walking into. Oh...the last time you had this coach you ejected him for repeated balls and strikes issues? Whatever it is, I think it's important to know if there's a history there. Anybody have anything else here? ~Dawg

Sorry, not directed to you, but when I read this, the hoky-poky song popped in my head. Put your right hand in, put your right hand out, put both hands in and extended them out....and do the hoky poky....

This is a great question, @Coach BIll. I had something VERY similar happen to me last week. A rookie umpire working a HS scrimmage (it was his first time on a HS field) appeared "drunk" or "stoned". I pulled him off the field immediately. We spoke. He takes a variety of prescription meds and said his meds were "out of balance" and "out of phase". We sent him home. My situation was different from yours in that mine was handled umpire to umpire. Yours was obviously coach to umpire... I would just caution you and everyone reading this...don't presume ANYTHING about ANYONE. It could be they are an addict who used abused alcohol or drugs prior to the game. It could be they took legitimate prescriptions at the wrong time, wrong dosage, etc. It could be it's a hot day, they are dehydrated and now exhibiting "drunk" or "stoned" behaviors. What is the concern? The concern is...the umpire is not able to functionally call the game and for THEIR safety and the safety of everyone on that field you need to work together to get him off the field. So, address the concern. For a HS game, this is precisely why you should have a school administrator (Athletic Director, Principal, etc.) who is at the facility who can assist. My first step as a coach would be to approach the OTHER umpire and express your concerns as diplomatically as possible and ask him to check on their partner. If you still feel they should be off the field and the partner umpire is not in agreement about that, that's when you have to get the administrator involved. In closing, I hope the game film supports your actions and it's clear that the umpire in question was indeed impaired and unable to function professionally on the field. ~Dawg

Nice!

In my neck of the woods, starting times and length of games are becoming a major issue. It’s never been quite this bad. But only the umpires suffer, so no one does anything about it. Things I’d love to address: 1) Starting games on time (move games to a realistic starting time if necessary. Stop saying 4:30 when we start at 5:00 and had no shot for 4:30). If not, rules regarding when a game must start based on late arrival. Or when a time limit kicks in based on original starting time. 2) I/O rules re: starting on time. This is a luxury, not a necessity. We don’t need to run a practice before the game. Starters only, first of all. 3)Time between innings. Let’s use a clock of some kind. It’s low hanging fruit. 4) Address a time limit and/or extra innings. There is no reason to play extras in a regular season game. I’m supposed to be there for 10 innings for 3+ hours for no benefit? We’re supposed to be about player safety, too… MLB is so much more enjoyable with pace. I know we can’t do all that, but man HS can be a slog. Without any motivation, teams show up when they want, warm up for as long as they’d like, and play at whatever pace they see fit.