jkumpire

AC, these still avaliable? I wear 4e, but these shoes ar ein 2E only anyway, and maybe I can stretch them.

That Carlucci is in good shape, a little better than the one I own like it. Someone will get a good protector if they buy it.

I'll make a deal, Jax, you pay the shipping and I'll take them for 1.25

Thank you much for the information. I am very familiar with Rugby, great game to watch. I think I like the regular version instead of the seven player version a lot of US colleges are playing these days, but I enjoy both types at lot.

What is the NRL? And don;t tempt me, I have always wanted to go to Australia, if I could umpire games all year long I'd try to move down there.

I'm often accused of not being in my right mind. We know this already! Jax, May I simply point out that if you are right-handed you are never in your right mind. If he is left-handed he does have a problem. Don't think there's an issue there: if I have any I don't have more than one mind, so if I'm not in my right mind I don't have any other minds to occupy. At least not of my own. I suppose I could occupy someone else's mind, but that'd be pretty annoying for all concerned. My good man, as your season gets ready to begin in your corner of the world please let us know if you lost you mind or if it just wondering. Your mates on this web site will look real hard to find it and give it back to you. BTW, is it time for the Grand Final yet? Is Carleton playing decently at all these days in the AFL?

I'm often accused of not being in my right mind. We know this already! Jax, May I simply point out that if you are right-handed you are never in your right mind. If he is left-handed he does have a problem.

Stu, 1. I have a post game with every umpire I work with. I recieved compliments about my zone in every game I worked in the tournament in the locker room after the game. I felt I had a very consistent zone in every plate game I did, and yes, I know when I have a bad plate game. It wasn't during this tournament. 2. I had one F2 say something to me once in the tournament. I make it a point to start a dialogue with every F2 I work with, this F2 sad nothing to me the whole event, even when I asked him his first name in the top of the 1st inning of the 1st game I worked with him. 3. I did not hear many complaints from the stands about my zone, and I never do. When I do I ignore them, when do fans matter? They are to be ignored. 4. Again I have no problem with the 1B umpire suggesting to a non-trained coach (who is a parent) not to get angry and yell about a pitch call when everyone saw him duck the pitch! It is hard to say far over this kid went on a hanging breaking ball down the middle of the plate, he deeply bent his kness and his back to lower himself. It was that obvious. He's not getting into my zone, he's trying to save someone from real trouble. Sadly the person didn't take his advice. I really do not know what to say about this; after the game I said to my crew why I called it a strike; everyone agreed that's what he did, it was that obvious. That's when I found out what he said. The point of the matter is that he marched out to the 1B coaches box angry before I called the pitch, he was angry after the pitch and made a vocal fool out of himself. I probably should not have yelled back at him as loudly as I did *and I somewhat regret saying what I said), but he deserved to be dumped when he came back out.

I greatly appreciate the responses men, and it looks like we are about to put this topic to bed. Last two days I've worked a tournament several levels above the one we have discussed, and it is amazing. Managers ask questions before arguments, players find the zone and play from there, and if you get rang up on a 3rd strike, they head back to the dugout to complain there or get ready to play. F2's usually know how to fram pitches or ask where a pitch missed. It is almost real baseball.

Men, Several of you have noted that my loud command "I don't really care what you think, get in the dugout" was too harsh, or baiting, I partly agree with you. Nobody wants to hear an umpire get into such a loud disagreement, especially with the age of kids this tournament was. OTOH, when you are dealing with people who have no idea how to approach an umpire, or question a call in any other way than throwing a match into a can of gas, what do you want me to say or do? Maven had one idea that I don't think would work, other suggestions are appreciated. Sadly with this team and one or two others I saw in the tournament, the players do exactly what the coaches do. If they see gestures or yelling by their coaches at the umpire, or start complaining about every pitch they don't like (which this team did) do you start dumping players left and right, or use a sharp word to calm them down,or just ignore them until you end up with a real mess on your hands? The sharp words were meant to try and end the bad behavior before the assistant coach dumped himself. He didn't take a hint. One last point: Earlier in this tournament I sturck a kid out on a corner pitch. His response: He turned around and said "OH My God!" Needless to say I brought him back to look at me and said, "Do not say that again", or words to that effect, just loud enough for him to hear. Two innings later I handed his HC a bat at the end of the inning as he came down from the 3B coach's box. I told the coach quietly (who also an umpire btw) what he did, what I said to him and asked him to take care of it. His first words were, "Well, I trust his zone completely." My quiet response was, "Coach, I have a little more experience than him in calling strikes, please take care of it." He didn't, because his attitude was that it was his player and his player never makes mistakes . That is the kind of crap too many umpires have to put up with, and I don't just swallow my tongue and take it any more.

Rich, On the levels you and I normally work you are 100% right. With younger age players and coaches who have no clue, i have no problem with this. The ducking of the pitch was so obvious a blind man could see it if he had his back turned to home plate, and my 1B partner tried to diffuse the situation before the 1B coach got in trouble. If the 1B coach or manager would have asked why I called that pitch a strike I would have gladly told him why. Instead he wanted to yell and let his anger buy the next call. Of course what he got was a ticket out of town. To your other comment about ejecting him earlier; My first thought was to dump him, but the tournament directors do not like ejections and prefer that they not happen. So I tried to keep him in the game instead, in hindsight my mistake. Then at least the manager would have something to complain about to the tournament managers.

If the asst. is still misbehaving after having been warned, then don't ignore it. Ask the manager to come out, calmly tell him that his asst. is ejected, and that the game will resume when he's beyond the visual confines of the field. He'll ask why and is entitled to know. Even if it's totally obvious, tell him: "I warned him, and he persisted in making personal and unsportsmanlike comments." If he wants to argue: "Coach, I asked you to come over as a courtesy to inform you of the ejection. There is nothing to discuss. Let's play ball." If he persists, he can join his buddy sipping gatorade in the shade. It's tough not to lose my temper when I'm attacked personally. But when coach says, "You suck!" all I hear is "I wanna leave!" Why would I be mad about excusing someone who no longer desires to be present? Maven, I respect many of your posts here but I think you are mistaken. Inviting the head coach out for a conversation is offering the HC a free shot at you, because the last thing he will do is talk about his assistant's behavior. If your conversation as you laid it out could happen, you might have a case. But a non-trained or non-professional coach is not going to respond like that. And that in many ways is the real problem here and on so many other levels of youth baseball: Coach, parents, or coach/parents have no clue on how to express a disagreement with an umpire other than yelling or publically displaying their dislike of a call in front of everyone.

1976, Yes.

Ricka, If it was a upper level game or above, I probably would have laughed, or said "glad to hear it, so i don't have to see you." At the age and playing level of the participants and the loud voice he used, I didn't feel I had that option. But it is a good point.

Stu, Without going into detail, the team whose coach I ejected lost the previous day 16-2 and blamed me for being beat, and there had been other cases of USC during the game. When the coach of the team who won the game showed up at the plate meeting, refused to shake me hand and rolled his eyes as my crew walked to the plate, I'm not sure I could say anything to calm things down. Wolf, We had already gone past the "That's enough" stage already. Every time I didn't call a pitch they didn't like, I was hearing dugout comments, and we had gone past the 'warn, ignore' stage at that point (already been tried). Probably I did say too much at that point, but he's ten feet away shouting in the direction of the stands. All, Thanks for your comments so far. Maybe I was too harsh.

You don't know how much I wanted it to be a Fed game, or another game earlier in the tournament to give an NCAA postgame ejection to a coach after a game (who sai dhe was a 'certified umpire')

This was my first ejection at any level in over a year. Very discouraging to have to do it. In my area kids summer baseball (HS age and under), like other sports, is about ruined. If my kids, who are now grown, would want to play any sport outside of a school team, I wouldn't let them.

I am working a tournament in a certain area of some significance for that area. I am on the plate for the same team for the 3rd time in 3 days this time in an elimination game against a local rival. OBR. My Plate meeting went like this: "Good afternoon gentlemen, sorry you have to play each other before the championship game. Have your on-deck hitters help out with foul balls behind the plate. Unsportsmanlike behavior will not be tolerated. Good luck men." Score is 6-3 home, 1 out 5th inning of 7. Home team batter on 1-1 pitch squats down and ducks curve ball over the plate. Of course I immediately call strike. He grounds out to F6 the next pitch. 1B coach who has already been told by my 1B umpire why the strike was called and to calm down walks back down toward bench beside/behind me and yells loudly enough for stands to hear. "We need some consistency from you back here Blue!" I almost ejected him then, but instead loudly replied, "I really don't care what you think coach, get in the dugout." After telling his manager (who most everyone has trouble with in the tournament) what supposedly happened, the manager walks out of his dugout to where the two people running the tournament are, and spends the next next half-inning gesturing and complaining about me, while his team gives up 2 runs. Next inning, 1B coach walked around to go to 1B, and loudly says to me "Well, the good thing about this is once we are done here we are going to a league in (new town named) next year." I immediately responded: "Well, you can start heading that way right now!" and dumped him. Game ends later, 7 innings in 1:30 or so, team who had their assistant dumped wins 6-5. Q1: Was this a justifiable ejection, or was I a p***** d*** and several other things I was called by the coach after i dumped him? Should I just have ignored the comments? *********** <Postscript rant> After the game I and my crew head to the locker room, and I already know I'm not going to get my assigned game three hours later, the losers bracket final. One of the directors walks into our locker room, his first words were: "Who is working the game tonight? I am the only one who is, and I told him. Then I asked, "Do you want a report?" and I told him exactly what I typed above. Then he leaves. The game ends at 4:00. At 4:03 the assigner, who is at work an hour away, gets a call from the director saying "You need to call _____ and tell him he is off the game, and find a replacement." When the assigner said he was at work, he was told "This is your job, do it." I guess now it is okay to say or do anything you want if you don't like an umpire's call, especally since coaches think it's okay to run all over umpires and say anything they want to them while we quietly ignore their comments and actions. Most all of these people coaching have no training or understanding about the rules, how to complain about a call, deal with umpires, or control their kids. I won't go through the rest of the backstory, I just need to to know if I was too quick to eject in this game. </postscript rant> *************

Black under black? White! Most of the college umpires I work with wear white under black or college light/powder blue.

I am currently wearing this protector in hot weather, even in college woodbat league games. I took a hard shot on the shoulder pad the other day and it didn't bother me at all. Not that I ever want to take one, but I am waiting to take one in the chest to see if it really stops anything very well. It is a fairly cool protector, very light weight. The big problem with it so far is the harness; as a tall umpire getting the strap that attaches to the back of the protector tight enough so it stays in the proper postion is a pain. The first couple of times I wore it I could not keep the protector up. In all honesty, I would compare this to an old Honig's K1; light, probably takes a good shot decently, but unlike the K1 it is hard to adjust to fit. Good for hot weather, and if Jon Bible wore a K1 on the D1 level, you can get away with this one below college level with a reasonable degree of assurance it will work. Frankly from what I have seen of the Unequal protector, if you could put the Kevlar shield on this protector, it would work out very well. It is overpriced at it current price IMO, but since I paid for one I really have no leg to stand on with that observation. I will report back on this when I take a hard shot.

NCAA: 7-7-e. For this sit it is the same in all codes but I think there is a difference if the batter is on the way out of the box and thus has one foot in the air and the other still in the box. OBR would have him out. If one foot is in fari territory outside the box it is an out in NCAA and FED too I believe.

I try to only wear socks with just one hole in them instead of two. Does that make me an advanced umpire?

I am sorry, I have a ton of work to complete and I am going to have to stop for now. I will revisit this subject again, and thank you for your responses.

I will read your post whaen I am done and respond accordingly.... jkumpire, on 04 Apr 2014 - 12:27 PM, said: Matt: The fallacy is yours, using a false premiss to create a false analogy. I think it's unintentional due to a misunderstanding of how Title IX compliance works. To alleviate that, I would suggest learning what "substantial compliance" means. In short, without knowing how the school was compliant initially, I cannot say if SB would ever be considered a tool to be in substantial compliance with WR. It most likely would not be, but it could under certain circumstances--which then would render the concept you raise moot, because it wouldn't be about facilities at that point. I would submit that what we have here is not an issue of 'substantial complaince' but 'disperative impact'. The long and short of the matter is that the issue concerns a set of bleachers built years ago by volunteers who were/are part of a booster club for the baseball team. The complaint is that the bleachers by their existence are (in your words) denying opportuntiy to the SB team. The fact that the school administration decided to tear down the bleachers is pretty convinving evidence to me that 'substantial compliance' was not possible for the school system, so the bleachers came down. But my other point here is valid, in this whole discussion the issue is Baseball facility, vs. Softball facility unless there is knowledge you have that there is other systematic bias against the SB team that is actionable under Title IX. Why is this discussion limited to SB and BB? Complaince has to be across the whole atheltic department is it not? jkumpire, on 04 Apr 2014 - 12:27 PM, said: All conjecture without fact, and irrelevant...again, read on. Yes it is conjecture, but again, the circumstances of the issue force us to look at other factors, like who was involved in the building of the stands. On to the next post.

Matt, now your argument gets really dicey here. jkumpire, on 04 Apr 2014 - 12:27 PM, said: That didn't happen...read on. Oh yes it did. From the Yahoo article: Now, the school must tear it all down. The U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation following an anonymous complaint. Ultimately, officials demanded that the seating and scoreboard be torn down because the upgrades are superior to Plymouth's girls' softball facilities (pictured). The boys' seating is also not handicap accessible, which is a separate violation of government regulations.... Plymouth High School superintendent Michael Meissen said the seats and scoreboard will be preserved until the district decides how to remedy the situation. Meissen told WJBK-TV that the school wants to follow the government's regulations and be "fair to everyone," but it does not have the funds to upgrade the girls' softball bleachers. The school reportedly plans to install a new scoreboard on the softball field, though. There are obvious Title IX implications to this story, as federally funded schools are required to provide equal opportunity for both boys' and girls' sports. Forty-two years after the law was passed, schools and colleges across the country are still struggling to comply with the rules in the face of shrinking budgets. Plymouth joins a long list of schools that may be in violation of Title IX, whether they realize it or not. This is classic Federal Bureaucratic oversight, tell them to get into compliance or else. What are their alternatives? The school district has no cash to build for the SB team, and nobody who supports the SB team is working to get the money, or the school superintendent would tell it to everyone. We can also assume no businesses in town have been asked to help out either. So they only have one way to comply, spend money to tear down the baseball stands and take down the scoreboard, and store them in the hope one day something can be built for the SB team, and the Baseball team. Meanwhile the stored scoreboard, seats and building materials start to deteriorate or have to be refurbished before they can be replaced. If I was a betting man, I would bet at least one game check those baseball bleachers are never rebuilt and that scoreboard never gets put back up. In time the athletic department or the school board will sell the items. jkumpire, on 04 Apr 2014 - 12:27 PM, said: The government does not tell institutions how to become compliant. There are three means by which an institution can become compliant and maintain compliance; only one has to be met. Thus, when an institution becomes non-compliant, there are no fewer than four remedies at its disposal. The institution decides how it is going to proceed, develops a plan for compliance, and an explanation as to why the remedy achieves compliance. This is totally on the school. No it isn't totally on the school. The government could easily grant a wavier so the stands could stay in place, they could help the school district with an ADA grant or make other money avaliable to help bring them into compliance. Further, read the article words again: Ultimately, officials demanded that the seating and scoreboard be torn down because the upgrades are superior to Plymouth's girls' softball facilities. Are you trying to tell us the school board or superintendent demanded that the school district tear the stands down? Even better, they could go back to the original application of Title IX when the law was passed in 1979, when the measure of complaince was in several different ways, and equality of outcome was not the standard that had to be met in all cases, a ruling that was handed down in the Clinton Administration in 1998. I would be very interested in hearing what you believe the four four remedies are for compliance; I believe that all of them are way too expensive for the district to do, so they took the one that costs them the least amount of time, money, and possible litigation, teraring down the Baseball bleachers. It is also interesting to me that you are supporting the whole idea that only the Federal Government has the ability to determine what is complinace or not (i.e. what is right/moral/ethical or not), ignoring the facts on the ground as they are.