jkumpire

Try this: Officially sports They are having a sale on the bag, and I will report on it as soon as I get it and use it- Monday. They also have a lot of sale items like Reebok plate shoes on sale. Well, the UPS man brought over my 3n2 bag today, my first impression: LAME! The shoe bags on the ends of the bag are huge, I think they can hold my size 14 shoes. I like the shoulder strap for the bag as well. The problems are numerous from what I see: 1. No telescoping handle, just one on the side of the shoe bag on the end.. 2. Bag outside is is not nearly as heavy as any other equipment bag out there. If you don't fill it to the top with gear sides or ends with shoes in them will collapse the bag. 3. Lightweight plastic base, I don't think the bag will take much punishment. 4. Bag is the size of the Evans bag, and not as tall because the sides are not firm. 5. Bag is still not wide enough for my Carlucci protector to lie flat in the bag without serious pressure on the zipper. In short, I got the bag for $54 plus shipping, so it was about $60. Not worth the price to buy, I guess it;s back to the diamond bag for me. Please let me know: Do the large Diamond bags have a telescoping handle on the end? I will post pictures tomorrow,

<rant> I worked a college DH (JUCO) today on the worst field for that level of ball I have ever seen. It is a city-owned field in a city in a Midwestern state. How bad is it? Well for $200 a day rent (what we were told it cost): 1. No lines past cut of the infield, and they don't match up with fair poles. No running lane. 2. Field has not been dragged all season. In my plate game I had a ball that was foul, hit a hole and went fair, then hit another hole and ended foul. 3. Grass was so high in the infield you could not get balls to go through it. 4. Grass was so high the F6 for one team dropped the Baseball behind the mound, and it took the BU and the other team's F1 30 seconds between innings to find it. The new ball had been in play for 5 pitches. 5. The batter's boxes were barely 18" wide, and not long enough. 6. The mound looked like a FPSB mound, no slope, no height. 7. Huge hole in front of the rubber. 8. HC tells us he was 'almost arrested' fro raking grass on the infield after the unionized city workers cut the field the other day, leaving grass so high it looked like a hayfield had been cut. Nobody but the city is allowed to work on the field. 9. Scoreboard did not work. 10. Dugouts were too small and one team had no room for all the players in it when they were hitting. 11. There was nothing but a chain link fence in the outfield, and the fair poles were only 6 to 7 feet high. 12. No place for fans to sit unless they brought their own chairs. 13. Bases were buried in the infield dirt, the top of the bases were even with the dirt part of the infield. 14. Closest rest rooms were 1/2 a mile from the field. Not even a 'porta potty' for this field. As I left the complex I looked in on a 13 year old or 14 year old game going on in the same city park, on a fully lined field, with a working scoreboard, short cut grass on the infield, bleachers to sit on. I felt bad for the home team that had to play on it. In the same town they have a privately-owned and volunteer-maintained field with room for 1000+ spectators, a totally turfed field, huge scoreboard, high wooden fences. big locker rooms and clubhouse and umpire's room, with great showers and care for umps and players. They have games all the time there in several sports, a college summer team, tons of HS and college games, and they a host a D1 league post-season tournament. The difference between the private field and publicly owned and taken care of field cannot be more stark. Now that's not to say a city run and cared for complex can't be well taken care of. i grew up playing in public parks, and they were well taken care of. This one wasn't.</rant>

Try this: Officially sports They are having a sale on the bag, and I will report on it as soon as I get it and use it- Monday. They also have a lot of sale items like Reebok plate shoes on sale.

Has anyone used the 3n2 bag?

Please note: I discussed getting one of the "No Errors The Blue" Bag. This bag has been back ordered to May 25th, so who knows when or if they are available. I probably am not purchasing it.

Presentation mechanics do matter! If catchers catch more strikes they get more strikes period. If they butcher marginal pitches, they don't get them. In my opinion, the higher up the ladder you go, the more important they are. Most HS and college F2's know this.

Nice job! I had a unique experience at a JUCO DH today. I'm the PU and Visitor 4 hole hits a shot. Score is now 6-2 H. Team on bench comes out toward the plate to greet the BR. But as many of you know NCAA says that's a no-no now so I put up the stop sign. V manager goes nuts. "Nobody's enforced that all year, It's a bush league rule, this is baseball, they are supposed to have fun." Pitching change happens, and he's still chirping about it at me. I finally told him, "Look, that's the rule, and I'm enforcing it." Then out of the stands some guy yells a the V HC: "WILL YOU GET IN YOUR BOX AND SHUT UP AND LET THE UMP DO HIS JOB?" After 30 years of umpiring, for the first time a fan took my side in an argument and yelled at a coach! I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one.

For years all umpires carried indicators. As going to clinics became more prevelant, they teach not to use one so it fell out of vogue. Many clinics are taught by MiLB umpires and they are instructed not to use one, so that translates to," It's unprofessional" to use one. The problem is we don't have quality fields with good scorekeepers, we get a girlfriend or little brother of a player that screws the board on a regular basis. I personally carry one but I may only look at it two or three times a game, sometimes not at all. My policy when I instruct is do what you want. If you feel better carrying it, fine, if not then don't. I know some guys that don't use one on the plate, I don't like that but if they can do it I don't complain. I know guys that want to take their BU's indicator away, that's crap. Now if he wants to bury his head in it then he needs to learn how to use it correctly. The best thing to do is notch your wheels so you never look at it, you get the count by touch. I have found that usually when the count is lost, it is at the location of the "dead ball" waiting for the funeral, or trying to get home after it....

Well, Normally I kill threads when I put a post in, I'm glad to see I got a reaction, though I am surprised by it. Let me respond, please. 1. If you are sliding towards 1B and something happens, then best thing to do is immediately stop your slide step, and set for the call. Or if you have time, slide back to 2B a little if you can. It's not a hard adjustment with a little practice, and remember as the first poster said, the money play is at 1B. 2. I'll admit the line to tell the HC in this case is a throwaway line to an extent. But please, the misreading is unreal. I said "covered" in the statement, which means you have an umpire who sees the call, and the aftermath of the play at 2B, and another umpire who has position for the play at 1B. You can cover much more with a well worked 3 man crew than a 2 man crew. Is there anyone here who wants to argue the point? Seriously? Also, please note I said 1000%, I wish we had a "cynical" font for statements like this. 3. The whole point of the threat is about a good umpire who got caught in a tough play by a mistake/misplay by F4, and how to handle the coach because he comes out to complain the BU missed the call. Let's see, if the HC thought the BU got the call right, even if the BU was at a bad angle standing on his head drinking a root beer, would the HC be out there? OF COURSE NOT. He's out there complaining at jnazz because F4's misplay caused the runner to be safe. I'll bet anyone here jnazz got the call right, and our HC wouldn't know out from safe if Doug Harvey was his 1B coach telling him the result of the play. The HC is trying to buy a call, or throw the BU under the bus and blame him for F4's mistake. Why should jnazz have to put up with it? 4. Finally, with all due respect, we all have stories or experiences about how someone blew up a 3 man crewed game because the crew did not do this or that right. Many of us do not do 3 man often. But some of your comments folks are way off base. three competent umpires can work a 3 man quite well if they communicate and have a good pregame. I've done 3 man D1 games with two strangers and we had no problems covering everything easily. I've also done 3 man games where I would like to pay the 3rd man his game fee and ask him to sit in the stands and watch the other 2 do a 2 man well. As read some of these posts, it's like we should only do every game as a 2 man crew, since most umpires will mess up a 3 or 4 man crewed game. I just don't buy what your selling here. Thank you for your comments, and I can't wait to read the responses.

Don't even let the defense blame you because they can't make a simple play! It's their foul up, they own it. You own your hustle and your effort to make the call the best you can. Your mechanic is an older mechanic they taught us at pro school in the 1980's. It is a good mechanic, especially on higher levels of ball because you don't have much time to get any good angle for the wacker at 1B. Sometimes you only get one step with a good turn, or less. The lower the level, the more you have to respect the play at 2B to make sure you get it right. but in this case don't get too made at yourself because the defense messed up a play that put you in a box. Just remember, if you were in perfect position to make the call at 2B, but they thought you missed the wacker at 1B, the HC would be just as mad at you, he's looking for an excuse to blame someone, and since he can't fire his players, he's coming at you. And when the HC tries to pull that crap, just tell him to hire a 3rd umpire if he wants every play covered 1000%.

Sure.....sounds like a plan. Send yours to me first, after getting yours I will send mine... Postage due right? :tantrum:

Just an update.... My partner that day just happened to work the same two teams the next day. Somehow the event of the previous day came up, and the school's AD pointed out the "gal" as he put it "before I had a chance to tell him what kid it was." LOL

I got word last night that the vendor I used for the bag says they are backordered until 4/25. Very frustrating, they said they had 12 in stock. :big_no

Jn, You want to trade for a day, and find out which one is better? :question1:

I used to think that way, but this is HS Baseball. And in this case the kids were right in front of me. It's hard for me to say that a positive word to a 17 or 18 year old kid who just got mercied is a bad thing. I just can't do it anymore away from the park. Ultimately, it didn't matter, I could have stood by the door to leave and she was going to say something anyway.

They will pry mine out of my cold dead fingers, and sell it to buy a mansion in the South of France. :0

I broke down and ordered one of these things, should be in my hands next week, I will give a full report.

Did some cage work with him this winter. Great guy to work with, really great sense of humor when working with NCAA F2's!

I had that guy Saturday! He moved into the field on every ball hit to RF; mind you, he wan't going out on all of those, but would take several steps into RF following the ball and then decide if he was going out or was going to take the runner. A couple of times, he took the catch/no-catch on F9 when he had no business doing so. I backed him up as best I could, but you know when you see a "can-o'-corn" heading to F9, you don't expect your partner to be going out, so I was a little late getting into the library a couple of times. When I spoke w/him about it after the game, he basically just told me that was how long it takes him to decide if he's going out or not - He also never vocalized any 'Safe' calls - ever! I know there are a lot of times when that's not necessary, but I want to hear something on those close plays. Nothing - all physical, nothing verbal. Again, when I mentioned that, he told me he didn't think it was a big deal. The frustrating part is that, apart from these two things, he was pretty good and made several good, tough calls out there. Last summer, I felt so bad for a partner of mine. He's a great guy, but we had not worked Baseball together for 6 years or so. For that game he was on the plate. It's a Sunday afternoon about 3:00 P.M., finals of big legion tournament. Teams have 3 combined losses all season. I'm the PU. He had the loser's final just before this game on the plate. It's 95 degrees, 100% humidity. He is soaked to the bone, I even offered to give him a new shirt, and a quart of the finest Aquafina bottled water outside of your kitchen sink. He said "No, I'm fine, and I do my standard pregame. Point #1. "If you are in A and you feel like you have to go out on a trouble ball, go ahead and I will be behind you and I have the BR until you take him back." Next sentence, "It's hot, don't go unless you really have to." Somehow my partner misunderstands, he thinks he has to go on everything. For four innings he goes out on every ball to F8 or F9 from A. At first I didn't think about it until he went out on a ball from A to left-center, every other time I moved in response to him, it's his judgment. By the end of 4 he is literally about to collaspe. I stopped the game twice as unobtrusively in the 4th as I could so he could get rested (clean plate off, take ball out to F1, all the normal time wasters). I ask him if he's Ok by using the hand signal. He has his hands on his knees looking like he is headed for heat exhaustion. Finally, I'm scared about him so at the end of 4 I call him over to the 1B foul line. "**** are you okay?" Wheeze, Wipes sweat, hands on knees, says "Sure, I'm fine." He looks half dead. "****** you are killing yourself out there. What are you doing?" "I'm going out on every ball from A." I'm in shock at this point. "****" I said, "Why? I said only go out on a trouble ball. Please get some water and don't go out again." By inning 7 he can barely move, thank goodness we end after 7, 6-2 for winner. in the 7th he made more AT&T calls than a 13 year old girl does in a week (my old age revealed here). After the game I give him all my water, and we had a long talk. He told he misunderstood what I said, and since he thought I wanted him to go I went. We sat for an hour until I was sure he wouldn't collapse on the way home. I tried ot tak him to dinner somewhere so he could load up on liquid. "No" He said, "I'm going straight home, and I'm drinking a case of beer at my house and not moving." Broke my heart, I use the same pregame for years, and the one day someone misunderstands it, he almost passes out because of it.

Had some fun tonight. Last night I had 3 hour 7 inning college game, 14-2. It was uglier than, well, words cannot describe it. So today, ugh, a HS game. V is ofer the season, H is not much better. V gets 2 in the top of the 1st. Stays 2-0 until bottom of 3 when Home team gets a nice quick 12 spot. V's F1 hit 3 batters in a row, and 4 out of 5, add three errors and a walk, and voila.. V is scoreless in 4th, H puts up 6 spot. Top 5, V down 18-2 leave the magic run on 2B to end the game. Just bad baseball, and it only took 1:45! Oh well it happens. Partner and I talk in the lot, and he's a hour away from home. "Let's grab some food, where do you want to go?" I ask my partner. Mickey D's and Wendy's are next to each other in town, he chooses Wendy's. I'm out of my gear and uniform. We go in the place, he goes to the men's room, and I see two players from the V's there ordering to go. Say a couple of nice things to them, one kid says "yeah, bad night for us but I went 3-3." I tell them keep their heads up, and then here comes Mommy. she's in her mid 30's to early 40's. petite, somewhat attractive, until she opens her mouth. Meow, Meow, Meow, claws out ready to attack. She interrupts me in mid-sentence. "My son is a great pitcher, that's the worst he's done all year, and you were the reason why." Silence from the players and me. the poor F1 starts melting into the floor. "I know the game real well, my son plays legion ball, and you gave him high strikes only never any low ones. You didn't set up over the catcher's head you were two feet inside, you were too big and fat to get down, everyone around me said how bad you were. You're the worst umpire I've seen ever." It just keeps going on and on. I had her son's legion team three times last summer, he never saw the field in any game I had with them. Finally she finds the fuse and lights it. "You don't know anything about how to umpire, I've watched my son since little league." :hopmad: I finally said something as I ducked her "rhetorical claws" again, "i'll take my 2,000 baseball games experience over your instruction on how to umpire, ma'am. Let's stop this." My partner comes out to order and hears all of this. Finally she say something about me personally as she starts to leave. I couldn't help it, "the only thing you have is a big mouth ma'am." she then leaves. And I start laughing. Everyone in the place is watching her going out the door shaking their heads. Partner and I had a good laugh all through dinner. As the old saying goes, "When you have someone making a fool of themselves, just stay out of the way and let them." And what she doesn't know is that I'm working the plate for them two weeks from today... :yippie: I'll have a very nice thank you note ready to give her for all her constructive criticism, though I'm not going out of my way to give it to her! It was a fun time in Wendy's tonight. My partner says he will be there to watch every minute of the next game.

This illustrates to me a problem many umpire have, and many officials in other sports too. I doubt if many of us have the problem, but as we teach other umpires/officials it might help them if we see it too. Bk officials call it court awareness, field awareness is a good BB term for it. Umpires need to see more of the field than many of them do. They get tunnel vision, especially when they make an OBS call, or something strange happens in a game they are not used to. In this case, the BU, if he has any kind of field awareness is going to see or get a good feel as to where a baserunner should be placed/protected. PU's should have this all time, since they have the whole field in front of them. Most of the time, if an umpire has field awareness, they will put the right runners in the right spots. If he doesn't have good field awareness he won't.

Yeah, it's a crazy little shop. An MLB umpire dumped some stuff off last year, and the local golf manufacturers drop off gear and clothes there from time to time. The Riddell is nice enough, if it fits your build. Mine fit pretty well, but I really like the one-piece design of Platinum, where the collarbone protection is one solid piece right down to the sturnum. To me, there is no better protection. The Riddell padding was a bit thin at the collarbone. But the Riddell is a collectors item. But remember, so was the +POS SUL, for a time. Just until you gets these ultra light Chinese masks. Now you can't give those plastics masks away. Still waiting to see the final All Star c/p design, though. Let me throw in a contrary opinion. Carlucci CP's are the best ever made!

In my experience, the Christian schools are the worst with language. As a grad of a Christian School, we are not even close to the worst with language. When i went to school one cuss word would be cause for suspension, or running until your knees were pounding dirt. Looks like where you live you have a bunch of people commonly known as hypocrites. As to the person who said it was bad mechanics, last Fall I was working an evaluation camp for HS players at a D1 university in Ohio. The F2 I was working behind was an all state F2. On a ground ball I tried to clear him correctly, but he was so slow moving he kicked his leg out and tripped me when I was in the RH batter's box. when I asked what he was thinking about, his response was "well it happens once or twice a month." Unreal, maybe one day he will figure out how to get out of his box.

That's exactly the question to me. I assume you saw the video at the NCAA meeting of the kind of call they were emphasizing for "voluntary release". But unless I missed some things somewhere, the term is not as specific as necessary. Maybe the need to say this matters on tag plays, or something. Writing rules are not easy, especially when you try to substitute a rule for an umpire's judgment.

R1, 1 out. BR hits ball to F4 who throws to F6 for the force. F6, touches bag with ball in glove, takes a step inside the baseline, then i see the classic drops the ball on the transfer way after he's off 2B. I still have the out, but the more I think about the play the more I think I missed it because "voluntary release" did not happen. The NCAA video was clear on what call precipitated the change, but video they put out also shows you should watch F3 until he releases the ball. Before I talk to people in the hierarchy about it, I wanted to ask you: "Does the voluntary release rule change kill the force out/lose ball on transfer call?" Thanks for you help!