i think this needs to turn into other examples of when we coach and whether the book says it is coaching in the mechanics or in the rules.
not being a rules magnet, as is so obvious by my user name, i will say what i have seen in some games at all levels i have been to.
i have seen, umpires call ball 1, ball 2, ball 3 ball 4, but pretty much just say strike with no number attached. sounds like coaching on one side but not on the other to me. and i cannot find where it says to give the number anyway.
i personally think saying the number on a ball is coaching. if you just gave the count as 3-2 verbally and with your fingers and the batter is as dense as i am, and you say ball on the next pitch and the batter just stands there, anything you do would be coaching, ie repeating the call, pointing, saying take your base, anything after calling ball on the 4th ball is coaching. same thing with strike 3 and he just stands there. let them figure it out.
giving the coach the location of the pitch, either by turning you head to the side or if he asks, telling him, is coaching. if you tell them, then they can compensate, which you could say is legalized cheating. let them figure out your zone and where the pitch is by your call. you do not have to give them the location ever. if the pitch is outside/inside the zone, its a ball/strike, plain and simple, and if they start yelling or if they get mad because you will not tell them, there is a solution to that. no i am not saying you cannot do that, just an example of coaching maybe
i have seen a player get deked at second and get injured on a slide on a hit up the middle. he is screaming in pain and the umpire calls time with the ball in the center fielders glove and 50 feet from the infield running the ball in. that is coaching because normally if you would call time at all, you would make it get back into the infield. maybe the runner comes off the bag grabbing his ankle and could have been tagged. At some point you just got to umpire.
I will let the smarter one on here comes up with more examples of where we coach, maybe some we are not aware of. and then of course we get to argue/discuss who is the one of us that gets to be declared the higher authority/grand pooh bah on what is and what isn't coaching or should or should not be declared coaching by the book with the rules or the mechanics.
i have seen more that one Scott Clines say this at a minor league game before, when i get to go, i am not saying this is a correct mechanic or rule, nor whether they got chewed out by a supervisor and been dismissed at the end of the year, who may have seen that. i do know Scott Cline worked in the minor leagues, (and just because he did, that does not make him the be all end all in umpiring life) and at least at that level, i am pretty sure you do not want a fight to break out, even though there are ejection ways to handle it when it does happen. you also don't want to send that animosity, i would imagine, amateur or pro, to the next crew that has the two teams the next time they play and they decide to settle the issue at that time, or if they do not see each other, spring training or a game the following year. there is a lot of money, (think scholarships here as well as pros) involved in those phenom draft choices when it comes to how they get injured, even though that may be none of our business by rule or mechanic.