AmackNH

Anyone on the forum work any Babe Ruth in or around Saugus MA?

70% two man with the exception of lower level rec ball and regular season little league being 1 man. At playoff/tournament time it's all at least 2 man.

Which HSM do you use? Allstar pro model 7

I have used a HSM for 3 years and had no issues. Talking and being heard hasn't been an issue either. Definitely recommend you adjust the straps well though. It can do a lot of moving if not tight.

As I said, as described to us, for the next two years that will be fine. My understanding is that for High School board guys they may offer a 1 day just to get up to speed on AAU specific items. Also, AAU is moving from FED to OBR. Like I said...It look likes alot of changes and alot more structure are coming. Have to wait and see.

I have an email out to rob. He was pretty straight forward with us as far as knowing he was moving uphill. I will update when he replies.

Rob Healey has evidently been put in charge of umpires for AAU. According to him, when he asked the people who run the national program who was doing their games they told him "we have no idea." What he told us was he obviously found this incredible, so he is essentially starting from scratch to come up with a program to ensure the quality of umpires. He is from the Northeast but also spends half the year in Florida so it sounds like New England and Florida are getting the training first. Sounds like they are going to have Regional assignors and supervisors. My local association had 28 guys at the clinic this weekend and were told we would all be evaluated by either him or another member of his staff at least once during the year. Its early in the game but if he can make half the stuff he is proposing happen it could be very good.

It seems there are some major changes coming to AAU baseball. As I understand it, starting this year AAU teams can continue using "whoever" for regular season games. However, for all tournaments and playoffs teams will need to use either High School or AAU board certified umpires. I also understand that the AAU goal is change this to AAU board certified ONLY within two years. I just completed their weekend course this weekend. It was run by Rob Healey. It was a friday night classroom followed by Sat/Sun on the field. He also had Matt Hansel (for minor league-current college and Atlantic league), Chris Conroy (current AAA/MLB fill-in) and Bill McCallum (former AAA-Current college) with him for the entire weekend. I believe Healey has taken over as UIC for AAU. We got Hats and Shirts as part of the clinic.

Good god...AGAIN, not the point of the original post. So, since my question has been answered this will be my final post on this thread. How many times have we said on this board that at lower levels sometimes "anticipating the play" can go awry cause kids do strange things? Why didnt the second baseman release? If he did, why couldnt he get back to his position on time? Did aliens take him away? A giant sinkhole opened and he fell in? Answer...I dont know and frankly since it has no bearing, I could care less. HE WASNT IN HIS NORMAL SPOT AND THE BALL COULD NOT BE CAUGHT WITH ORDINARY EFFORT. I have no issue with debating varying scenarios but as far as I know I am the only one who was actually present for the play in question. So for the sake of THIS arguement, can I just "umpire" and state as fact for the purposes of any future discussion that he WASNT there and it was NOT ORDINARY EFFORT? Rant over. That is all.

Maybe I am missing something. The entire point of my OP was what to do after the appeal. Not sure why this turned into an IFF rule debate. That said, i stated in my original post that the second baseman was holding the runner on 2nd when the ball was hit. Think of it in terms of having a shift on. In essence you had David Ortiz up and he popped a short fly toward 3rd...but since the 3rd baseman had vacated his normal position it may not be ordinary effort.

Got it. I didnt mean that to come off as super defensive. To answer your question...I stayed at home (where I had signaled I would be watching the tag at third to my partner prior to the first pitch of the at bat). My partner was in C and started toward B on contact. What we discussed pregame was that we would use standard 2 man mechanics for our association. I dont this it was the mechanics that got US in trouble, rather some timing issues, my partners apprehension to take the heat and MY LACK OF FORTITUDE TO FORCE THE ISSUE. LESSON LEARNED. I think the mechanics could be looked at again by your partner. If I am not mistaking, which I may be, but isn't it the plate guy's call for 2B or SS making a play on a ball toward their respective foul line (in the case of the OP, the second baseman going towards the RF foul line to make the catch) when the BU is in the middle with runners on? He should have known this and just let you have it all out. I have to agree with what he told you, he made the call way too quick and should have never said anything at all. Yeah, tough to really paint a clear picture of where the ball was. It was a flyball that was still "in the V", albeit heading toward the line. We both seemed to agree the call was his, we just didnt get it right/handle it correctly.

LH batter. Shift on. F4 shallow RF, F6 directly behind 2b, F5 deeeeep SS. Pop up to 3rd where F5 would normally be, but because of the shift he will not have time to camp out. He will have to sprint/slide/dive to catch the ball. Still got IFF? @Jax, is this not one where I would have to "umpire" as I have seen quoted? Ball goes up, I judge where it is, glance at the fielder and make the call. If I just watch the ball to its apex how am I adjudging ordinary effort per the rule? Legit question, not trying to be defensive. You are correct sir! I was quick in my answer. You do have to take a quick gander and make your call. Lol...it was a legit question and your flashy emoticon makes me think sarcasm...lol

Got it. I didnt mean that to come off as super defensive. To answer your question...I stayed at home (where I had signaled I would be watching the tag at third to my partner prior to the first pitch of the at bat). My partner was in C and started toward B on contact. What we discussed pregame was that we would use standard 2 man mechanics for our association. I dont this it was the mechanics that got US in trouble, rather some timing issues, my partners apprehension to take the heat and MY LACK OF FORTITUDE TO FORCE THE ISSUE. LESSON LEARNED.

LH batter. Shift on. F4 shallow RF, F6 directly behind 2b, F5 deeeeep SS. Pop up to 3rd where F5 would normally be, but because of the shift he will not have time to camp out. He will have to sprint/slide/dive to catch the ball. Still got IFF? @Jax, is this not one where I would have to "umpire" as I have seen quoted? Ball goes up, I judge where it is, glance at the fielder and make the call. If I just watch the ball to its apex how am I adjudging ordinary effort per the rule? Legit question, not trying to be defensive.

@umpcoachfather...we both had runner responsibilities. I had the tag at third if there was one, he had R1 and R2. With IFF on I was also taking a look to determine if it needed to be called. Is there an implication in that question? Let it fly if there was...I am open to learning.

Thanks guys...pretty much what i am reading here is either way, get a bib and start eating...I am in my second year and this one ate me up. My partner is a 35+ year guy. When we got together he said to me "SH*#, we kicked this one. everyone over there knows it wasnt a catch. I called it too quick. We cant have an out and we gotta put the runner somewhere. Everyone moves up a base, R3 goes to dugout, no run scores." I say "how can we just take a runner off and not have him scoring or an out?" He says "thats we're doing" and went and verbalized the call. In the postmortem (pun intended) I feel like I got runover a little in the decision making. It sorta felt like to me he was trying to minimize the SH*#storm by not really penalizing anyone...no run/no out...

Here is the situation...I have the plate, partner is in C on the bases. Bases are loaded with one out. Infield fly is on. Pop fly goes up between 1st and second. No infield fly cause the second baseman was holding R2 and it is not ordinary effort. second baseman comes flying in, dives and comes up with the ball. My partner starts yelling catch, catch catch and signaling out. No runners move. Problem...From my vantage point and that of everyone on the first base side we saw the ball come out, fielder roll over it and pick it up. Batting team appeals, i tell my partner I have no catch. Now we have a mess. None of the runners moved. But now we have a batter we are calling safe with no where to put him...what do you do?

I was actually asking because I had two differing responses to this situation in back to back games. Game 1 my partner (an older guy) tells me "I will only go to you if I think your in position to see something". Apparently I was never in position see anything, LOL. In the second game, bottom of the 1st with me in "C" my partner came to immediately, "DID HE GO". It caught me off gaurd but I responded with what I had..."No he didnt". After reading the responses here and better understanding the requirement to check, I will be ready for it. Thanks guys.

Clearly I DO. But thanks for offering your opinion. Glad you were approachable enough that I could ask this question and get a well mannered response :-) "Lighten up, Francis." Mazza sometimes belies his true depth of knowledge & experience with a penchant for cruel & unusual phrasing. I am learning to take the snippy responses with a grain of salt...my personality however, does not always allow me to do so silently...LOL

Clearly I DO. But thanks for offering your opinion. Glad you were approachable enough that I could ask this question and get a well mannered response :-)

If you are the PU and your partner is in "B" or "C" do you ever grant the appeal on the check swing???

I suggest you get thicker skin. I did NOT chastise Ump24. He is a well regarded poster and i have nothing but the upmost respect for him even though we have never met. His comments were well noted but IMO did not fit the OP. It's ok to deviate from an OP a little. Example: Let's say someone posted an OBR rules question and a poster answered using a NCAA / FED rule reference. That's ok because it's sometimes important to know the different rules sets. In this OP we are talking about a youth rec league game where you get Daddy Coaches and the commissioner "to boot" acting like a jerk. That's altogether different then what ump24 posted talking about a Senior AAA game. That's high level baseball. The new poster these days seems to get "bent out of shape" rather easily and this new "breed" of poster would not have lasted 1 minute on some of the old Internet discussion Forums like McGrifths. If you are starting to get annoyed then simply "surf" You did not add anything of value to the posters comments. Pete Booth Ok. I will get thicker skin. I interpret his post and your response differently than your explanation. As for your last post...did you really just complain about those darn young whippersnappers??? Also, maybe you should put the "you did not add anything of value to the posters comments" to your signature block. You seem to write it alot. Does writing that add value to the OP or just make people feel better? In any case, I acknowledge that interpreting context of text can be difficult and I may have misread the initial response that irritated me again. That said, I will set back and "surf" until I have appropriately thick skin to jump back over to the adult table.

The relevant part of the OP You cannot compare high level baseball to a youth rec league game. The umpire has little or no experience and the Commissioner of this league is the one who is acting like an a*****e. if the Commissioner acts this way you can guess how others behave. Sounds like a league with NO discipline whatsoever. That's why for the most part you only had one umpire to begin with and he doesn't know any better or he would have refused the assignment. In a nutshell the recommendations and analogies you used in your response do not fit this OP. It's Youth Rec league enough said. Pete Booth I am fairly new to this site but I have seen this over and over again already. Am I missing something??? Does EVERY response to EVERY post have to answer the OP and the OP only without any deviation? I see repeatedly where "experienced" guys or guys with moderator titles do this. Whats the point? I think we are all smart enough to distunguish that the ump24 was making a more generalized statement about compliments not always being disregarded. Did we really need a chastisement for deviating from the OP??? I REALLY like this site and have relied on it alot for rules references, mechanics, etc but this is starting to annoy me.

I feel alot better. I have called two plates since I posted this and for some reason the simple statement "its a strike unless it misses the zone" has given me a much better perspective. I think its really more a matter of learning to ignore the moaning and constant "that a great pitch Johnny, just keep hitting that spot" crap. When I am working the plate I see a VERY distinct difference it what I call a strike and what I dont on the outside. I will give a ball, maybe a little more off the plate. For the age group I am calling that might be a little tight but thats what I see. During a regular season babe ruth championship game last night the VT coach, who went through about 7 pitchers and had about 15 walks, told my partner that I had a very good and very consistent zone. I am going to just keep doing what I am doing and ignore the crap.

I was SURE he missed when I watched the video...looking at the pictures I am WAY LESS SURE...I am inclined to go with the guy who was in great position and got a great look.