ukce1861

I'm right there in your boat. Went to a MiLB game the other day and the PU did this every time he cleaned the plate. Then he bent over and brushed it off... Would've taken half the time if he'd brushed it off to begin with.

I've heard on here multiple times about the four-step process. 1. Ignore 2. Acknowledge 3. Warn 4. Eject This seems to get the job done for me - most of the time before I get to step 3. I'm not saying it would've worked in this situation, but I would recommend you try it. This works pretty well when you've got coaches or players that aren't doing any single action that's ejectionable, but taken in sum, they are. You ignored, but probably for longer than you should have. You acknowledged, by sending the catcher out. You never warned. A perfect time would've been when he was whining about the strike zone after the 1st inning. Instead of blowing it off, warn him. This will either make him realize you're not going to listen to him argue the strike zone or make your ejection fully justified. Just my thoughts.

Thanks for the responses guys. That's a nice clarification to have. Now, how do you interpret the last part of that sentence, "a batted ball that strikes the batter"? Is this to be distinguished from a batter striking a batted ball or am I splitting hairs here? Here's the problem Mike. I kill it and then what? My partner has "fair ball" so he doesn't know why I killed it. (In fairness, I didn't know he had fair when I made the decision to wait for his call.) So I say, "TIME!" and then what? I agree the PU is typically in a better position to make this call, but for some reason he didn't see anything. Now what? What do you mean by the first sentence? But what do you do if your partner rules fair but you clearly saw the batter kick the ball?

Had a situation last night that I've been stewing over all day. LLSB. 3 man crew, I'm U1. No runners. RH Batter bunts the ball. It settles on the ground, just in front of the plate. It appears to me to be out of the box, but I'm not 100% sure from my angle. The ball is stopped. As the batter comes out of the box, she kicks the ball. I wait for PU to make a call, but all he does is point fair. So I come up with, "That's interference - batter's out." After the play, the coach came out and said she was in the box. We conferenced and the PU and U3 both said they thought it was in the box, so I called "Foul Ball". Now my questions are myriad. You baseball guys, OBR references are fine, so don't weasel out on me. 1). I know the batter is "protected" in the box, meaning a ball that hits the batter is a foul ball, not interference. But where is this spelled out in the rules? For some reason, I can't find it... 2). What do you do in this situation? I was 100% sure that the batter kicked the ball. I wasn't 100% sure that the ball was out of the box, but I "called what I saw"... Since the kicked ball was the PU's call, I waited for him to make it, but once he pointed fair, I felt like I had to address the kicked ball with what I saw. Thoughts on how I handled this? 3). After discussing this with another umpire today, he suggested it was interference whether the ball was in the box or not. His reasoning was, since the ball had stopped, this wasn't the same as a ball hitting the batter. This was now a runner kicking a fair ball. It kind of makes sense. It's like the ball hitting the bat versus the bat hitting the ball... Thoughts on that? Thanks guys!

Embrace the warm fuzzies... I probably would've given him one stern "That's enough". If he said another word, then sure. But I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Canada... I think others have mentioned that it's a Baseball Canada (sorry if I got the org wrong) rule.

Solid idea... I've forgotten my belt a few times when I pack up the night before and have a game right after work. Luckily the belt I wear at work is a 1 1/2" black belt, so it looks fine, but this is a good idea...

For the belt, I'd recommend www.postaluniform.com. Get the 1 3/4" belt. At $8.75 (shipping included) it's going to be cheaper than any other belt you can find and I've been very happy with mine.

Because some districts are so desperate, they'll take anyone... This is how I started last year. Went to a District clinic right before TOC, thinking I would start umpiring in fall ball for my local league. Instead, they begged me to do district games immediately. I ended up getting assigned every night that I was available. I still feel bad about how terrible I must have been...

No good options for tonight. Definitely no shorts. No real preference between the khakis or the jeans. My advice would be, as soon as you can, go to Walmart and get you a pair of gray dress pants. They'll last you for at least a few games and you can probably pick them up for $15 or so. These are not ideal, but it's better than your other options... By the way, enjoy your first game!

J, I'm not trying to pick on you but I tend to agree with Brian on this one. Put yourself in the PU's shoes for a minute. I don't care how nicely you said it, unless it was quiet enough for only you and him to hear it, I would look at it as someone's who's trying to show me and/or my partner up. Plus, what have you just showed the other fans? Undoubtedly some of them know you're an umpire, which makes you the foremost authority on all things umpiring. You've just given them carte-blanche to unleash anything on these guys. I mean, even you admit they don't know what they're doing... I'm sure you've seen it. One fan says something, which gets all the others going. As an ump, you shouldn't be that one... Again, I'm not trying to pick a fight - I'm just saying maybe you should consider doing it differently in the future and how your actions might be perceived... Have you ever tried to approach a LL umpire after the game? Come on, we go with our security escort straight to the locker room under the stadium, where we shower, eat, etc... We're untouchable.:hopmad:

I may be wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that the Championship in softball was going to be 4-man, but all other games were 3-man. If so, this might be why they went were you'd expect on the check swing, since U1 and U3 were always on the line. Weren't the Super Regionals in BB 4-man? So again, you'd always have an ump on the line. I could be wrong...:smachhead:

Based on what? In some codes (I think it's FED, but it might be NCAA) this is true, but not in OBR. Check 6.06(a). It just says he must have a foot entirely outside the box - there's nothing about the plate.

I thought it was interesting that PU was the one who made the out call after the conference. If this was U1's call, shouldn't he have made the out call?

Yeah, I was interested in the clinic they were supposed to have in Cocoa Beach in March 2010. It still says, "Dates Coming Soon!!!" Not soon enough apparently...

Read the definition of a fair ball. Does this meet any of those conditions? It didn't touch first, second or third base. It didn't touch any player or umpire while on or over fair territory. It didn't pass first or third base before rolling foul. So it's not a fair ball. Pretty kooky, but foul still the same...

I heard the radio broadcast of this guy. He was giving a lot of locations on the balls. Is this an "upper-level" college mechanic?

Welcome aboard!

Mike, you're my hero... I probably couldn't have come up with anything witty to say but I know I would have looked like this guy for the next few minutes... If you just said that and moved on, you're a far better man than me...

http://umpire-empire.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22711&highlight=referee+empire Pretty much the same responses you've already gotten, but there's some additional in here.

Another spot-on correction... So I was like 1/3 right...:2cents:

I understand what you're saying but sometimes you just need to let your partners fall on their own calls, in my opinion... In this situation, you probably would have had less of a crapstorm if he'd incorrectly called the kid out. Know which calls are yours and make them. If it's not yours, don't make it, even if you're right and your partner's wrong... Also, it might not have helped, but maybe saying, "I've got 3rd, I've got 3rd" would have avoided the problem. When you're working with an inexperienced partner, they're not going to know when you've got 3rd and when you don't, so they're going to make the call. Which is what happened here... Not trying to rag on you, just giving my And yes, I've done plenty of games where I would've rather been alone...;)

You're right, my mistake... That's why I love in 2.00 the part about, "On any interference the ball is dead" - except when it's not...:shrug:

This is the BU's call as this isn't a first-to-third situation. The BU will have all calls on the BR at 3rd, unless the BU goes out on a trouble ball. First-to-third only applies to a runner who starts on 1st. You take R1, the BU takes the BR. It sounds like you made the right call, but it wasn't yours. Just something to remember...

Interference is always an immediate dead ball (except for CI). R2 out, BR to 1st, unless you had an obvious double play (which this doesn't necessarily sound like).