SoCal Lurker

As noumpere said, it's not tricky. All it takes is a player wiht a live ball touching the plate (or the player who missed the base/plate) saying "he missed it" or anything remotely similar to that. The only thing that makes it tricky is some that some people (coahes or possibly untrained umpires) think it takes more than that and tie themselves in knots thinking that they have to do certain things -- things like it has to go to the pitcher, blah, blah, blah. But it is really simple -- coaches just need to know the rules and how to do it.

And calling a foul on the play would have prevented the injury how? The lawsuit the TSSAA won appears a better example of where an umpire could be sued: allegedly not enforcing the safety rule requiring players to sit in the dugout and a player outside was injured. (Note that the article talks about TSSAA winning the lawsuit on the grounds it wasn't responsible for the judgment of the umpire -- doesn't say if there was an action against the umpire. May well be that the umpire's insurance had already settled out of the case when it went to trial)

And perhaps I should add that the umpire paid for his error, too. That was the third out in the bottom of the fifth -- about 3 minutes before the "no new innning" time limit. The visitors tied it up in the top of the sixth, and the game went 9 innnings. So his penance was an extra 4 innings. (My son's team won in the 9th (my kid drove in the winning run ) so no harm to the result . . . not that I would complain too much on such a dunderhead running play.) But a follow up question. Let's say our coach objected and argued that the U can't call him out without an appeal. Could the runner go touch second, or is it too late? So is it a fruitless appeal since even if the U realizes he had a brain freeze, the defense could appeal (knowing they would win) as soon as the ball was put back in play?

Who is forcing the BR? No one. (Read the definition of force.) It looks like a force, it acts like a force for most purposes, but it's not. It's just an out if the BR doesn't beat the ball there. And if BR makes the third out before reaching first, no runs can score.

Alas, no -- as far as I can tell, the ball never became dead, the umpire simply called the out. (I didn't have great view of 1B -- I assumed that after getting pulled off, F3 got his foot back to the bag. But my son told me the U said he was out because he missed second on his way back. Oh well -- on the plus side, my son's teammate hopefully learned a baserunning lesson . . . )

Two cents: I would specicfically mention in the letter that the board ignored LL policy that prohibited rescinding the automatic suspension. And I would copy the letter up the food chain.

At the moment I'm lucky with the low-key travel ball team my kid plays with. When the ump blows a call (or people think he did), we don't get screaming from our coach or our parents -- one parent turns to another, "he was safe, wasn't he," "yeah, ump must not have seen the foot come off the bag" "oh well, shame we don't have two today." (OK, occaisonally someone does, but it's unusual -- quite a bit more enjoyable for the kids, and not teaching them to blame the umps. I really like having a coach who would never say, "we were playing against 10 today...")

14U, fed rules. 1 out; R1. Deep fly ball to left center. R1 is apparently thinking two outs and takes, off ending up a couple of steps past second when the ball is caught. After a pause he turns and sprints straight back to first, not retouching second, but cutting the corner off by a couple of feet. Throw to 1st pulls F3 off the bag. Umpire calls R1 out anyway, saying (so I'm told) that he was out because he missed second coming back. Is there some exception for cutting off the corner that makes that an automatic call by the umpire instead of one that requires an appeal at second? (Nothing suggested that the defense was aware there was an issue at second base.)

You need to read the rules again. OBR fixed (one of) the contradicitons. who is OBR? The Office of Baseball Redundancy office What do they do? They are messing with you . . . OBR = Official Baseball Rules. A play at first and a force play used to have different definitions of what had to beat wha -- which was changed a couple of years ago so that the same rule applies -- defense must beat the runner. So linguistially and literally a tie would go to the runner . . . if there is such a thing as a a tie . . .

They weren't thinking. They were emotional and upset at seeing a kid hurt and the umpire is the authority figure who is present. That would be part of why far more people say in the heat of the moment that they are going to sue than ever actually do. I'd even hazard that the mom being a lawyer makes it less likely there will be a suit against the umpire -- attorneys know what a pain in the rear it is to be a party on either side of litigation and look for deep pockets that warrant the costs and hassle of the litigtation and attorneys are likley to have insurance, so it's not likely to be a situation where a family will be in financial struggles from paying the hospital. Exactly. I do not expect the parents to do anything BUT will keep an eye on this. Ever used your insurance ? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk I don't umpire -- I've never been sued (or threatened) as a referee.

They weren't thinking. They were emotional and upset at seeing a kid hurt and the umpire is the authority figure who is present. That would be part of why far more people say in the heat of the moment that they are going to sue than ever actually do. I'd even hazard that the mom being a lawyer makes it less likely there will be a suit against the umpire -- attorneys know what a pain in the rear it is to be a party on either side of litigation and look for deep pockets that warrant the costs and hassle of the litigtation and attorneys are likley to have insurance, so it's not likely to be a situation where a family will be in financial struggles from paying the hospital.

Tucker, it depends on the level. In youth ball, I'm ejecting for any swear word, at any volume. Do you mean that if direted at you, or heard at all? Kid catches his cleats in his laces, face plants, and blurts out something?

Why would you take away what you thought was an "obvious strike" from the defense because of umpire confusion?

On a HBP, the runner could not score. Forget the appeal at that point, kill the play, and put runners where they need to be. It's not LL, so there's no "poof rule" . . . where would you like R3 to go?

Would it? He would be out before touching the base he was forced to . . .

Agree with a couple of others: be careful about how you use war stories. (I do instruction for soccer referees, not umpires.) War stories are fun to tell, but all too often instructors tell irrelevant war stories because they are fun and not because they are effective instruction -- often the stories are irrelevant because they address a different level of behavior than what is relevant to the audience ore really don't have anything to do with what officials can do to make things better. So my suggestion would be to limit yourself to two war stories: (1) from your early days, at the same level as the umps you're talking to, where the way you handled it made things worse than they could have been. then, after you've imparted wisdom, go back to that story and have them tell you what the novice you could have done better with what they've learned. Then, (2) tell a story [again, from the same level of games they will be doing] where you did some of the things you talk about and a it-could-be-ugly scenario worked out fine. In other words, tell the "war stories" in ways that give them confidence that they can handle situations if they do it properly, not in the sense of the horrors of being an umpire.

For sure? R1 and R2. Balk on pick-off throw at first gets away. R2 is turning the corner at 3B and RF is throwing to 2B in an attempt to put out R1. Why would you kill it? R2 may score on the play, and the attempt on R2 doesn't mean he's going to be out -- maybe that ball gets away, too, and he ends up at third. If R1 gets in a rundown in your play, we'll let it play out. If R2 is thrown out at the plate and R1 gets to 2B safely, the balk is ignored. If R1 is put out at 2B, R2 will be sent back to 3B for the balk penalty. I don't think Dash intended to deny any of that. I suspect he didn't think he did either -- but he said they aren't permitted to "attempt" to get someone out before the award based and to kill it if they did. The point I was trying to make was that killing it merely because they are "attempting" to make a play on a runner could be prematureas that attempt doesn't necessarily mean tha the criteria for ignoring the balk will not be met.

Most likely, in the opinion of the umpires, the runner crossed the plate before the out was made. (Hard for me to imagine that an umpire would think the run would score after the third out.)

For sure? R1 and R2. Balk on pick-off throw at first gets away. R2 is turning the corner at 3B and RF is throwing to 2B in an attempt to put out R1. Why would you kill it? R2 may score on the play, and the attempt on R2 doesn't mean he's going to be out -- maybe that ball gets away, too, and he ends up at third.

Obviously not caught in the air based on the ensuing play. My first thought was exactly that, but . . . if U thought it was caught (say a low line drive that wasn't clear if touched the ground or was caught), then the U's call makes sense: R2 is safe on the bag, R1 is tagged out, and BR is out on the catch. (And F6 tagging the runner isn't necessarily inconsistent, especially if he wasn't sure it was a catch.

13U. 2 outs. R1. Medium ground ball to F4. R1 simply running (no stutter or game being played) and passes in front of and close to F4 who flubs the play leavnig all runners safe. (Solo umpire game, so tough for U to see how much space betwen the runner and the fielder.) Sitting in the stands, I cringed waiting for an inning ending interference call -- which to the benefit of my son's team never came. Obviously the interference call is easy if there is contact or if the runner is being a doofus. But without those, I gather it is a judgment call by the U whether, in fact, the runner was too close and interfered with the ability of the fielder to play the ball? In the real world, what do you do to make that judgment? If the kid is just running, does the runner get the benefit of the doubt on that play?

Coaches sometimes throw tennis balls at catchers in their gear to help them get used to trusting it . . . not sure if that would be helfpul or not . . . but maybe don't do what the ump did at my son's game over the weekend and turn so your equipment doesn't help and then yell at the catcher . . .

Yeah I kind of thought that might be the case, I'll say this that training came when I was 15(Im 17 now) and that was our leagues minimum age, and 15 year olds were the backbone of our umpire corp, so thought it might have been a bit of an over statement by them, I'll say this allowing us to ump that young was not wise, i might only be 2 years older(in my 3rd year now) but I think I'm much better now, so many stupid errors we all were making, myself especially, errors I know now I'd never make if I started older Stay with it and stick to your guns. And don't let immature adults make you feel bad if you do make a mistake. Many, many moons ago, I started reffing soccer at 11 and tossed my first coach at 12 -- those are tough scenarios when you have to deal wtih them. (I did one season of LL when I was 13 or 14 but the adult support (and pay) didn't make it worthwhile.) I suspect you'll find that umpiring gives you great life skills that will help you in a lot of aspects

Is this a new bumper sticker?

Yes. It is a force if the out is made before the runner acquires the base to which he is forced. [As grayhawk noted, this may be confusing: my yes was in response to "I wasn't sure as it is an force out situation even if she tagged her." thus, the run does not count. Thx grayhawk]