SAB_UIC_TX

I got the UPS notification that Honigs shipped the black plate coat I ordered. It is due to arrive on 2/7/2012 in plenty of time before my first night varsity tournament game. Honigs website states it will take 12 weeks for delivery, Honigs in College Station told me 6 to 8 weeks, it's arriving in the 8 weeks and 4 days, not a bad estimate.

In TX we use the Texas Association of Sports Officials mechanic which says if U1 goes out; comes to a stop when play is about to occur, signal fair/foul, catch/no catch, remains out if there is any chance the ball will go out of play, if ball will not go out of plan, turns, watching the ball and hustles home, in foul territory, once he has reached home he should tell PU, "I've got home". This could differ from NFHS, I don't have the actual NFHS mechanic manual.

That makes the following situation I had last year very tough if you stay out: Ball hit to the right center gap my partner goes out as F9 and F8 were converging, I pick up the runner splitting the difference through the infield as the ball is coming in to third. Ball goes by F5 toward dead ball territory which have responsibility for and need to see if it goes in or not. Once the ball got past F5 the kid breaks for home, I still have the ball headed for dead ball territory. As the kid is about 45 feet from the plate i hear my partner yell "I've got home", ball stays in live ball territory and a throw home, no actual play but he was there. In 3 and 4 man, if you go out, stay out.

I guess I still don't see the advantage in this. Can someone explain the advantage at the high level of baseball and if this is such an advantage why doesn't every MLB umpire not do this? Not being confrontational, just trying to learn.

Please explain why and where you feel touching the catcher is necessary.

Your buddy is exactly why catchers who hate being touched won't usually say something - they are afraid of retribution. Last time I checked, the game is about the players, not the umpires. It's one thing to let a catcher know, for example, that you can't see a pitch when he is set up inside. It's a whole different thing to imply that you are going to F them because you can't use your peripheral vision to set up properly. Not. A. Fan. of this guy's attitude at all - at least not at the levels I work. I don't think he was implying that he was going to screw anybody over on purpose. I believe what he was trying to say was, that he works a certain way. If you ask him to change one day out of the year you might not get the same preformance that you get in all his other games. It would be like telling a hitter to change his batting stance for just one game out of the year. Atleast that's what I took from it... Those 2 words kinda set the tone for his intent, don't they?

One more former catcher that HATED, HATED, HATED the umpire touching me. Made me feel restricted like he was trying to keep me in a spot just for him regardless of where the ball was. I've heard guys say they do this so they know when the catcher moves or changes positions. Really, is your perception of movement that poor that you don't know when the guy 12 inches in front of you moves? It was said eariler, if things start going South, bad throw, passed ball that gives up a run and you've got your hand on him you're just grabbed the S*#@ end of the stick and will get a coach up in your grill. There's never a reason to touch a player, behind the plate or to break up a fight, never.

If you search ball bags or comb throughout the equipment section there was a discussion on this a couple of months ago.

Might have to look at some Smitty pants as an altertnative

I'd go with Honings, they are cheaper and you WILL end up there eventually so why not make tomorrow today.

Cloest store to us is in College Station, few hours away. I'm good with the shipping as it usually comes next day or second day when they ship USPS Priority. We've got a local officiating store for those quick little buy-them-anywhere items. Next time you go Thunder, can you pick up my plate coat for me???

Just cleaned my plate shoes, shine like glass. Hair spray is the ticket.

I liked the catcher video, if you've never caught there are some subtle tactics you can pick up on from seeing them like this. Interesting mechanic on steal of third, but bottom line getting angle is more important that distance. Advantage/disadvantage, that sounds like trouble to me, bang bang play with F6 bobbling the ball means he didn't do his job but still got the throw there in time to be an out. See what you call and call what you see. This to me is anticipating the outcome of a play. I want to see how often they update content before I give them my business. 25% of the content up and available right now was showed in the test drive area. Unless they put this up 3 months ago.....just sayin

In TX last year we inspected the bats and hats. Coaches had to carry the list of bats, if there was a bat that we thought was illegal coach had to have the list to show it was approved.

if you have a Container Store close by they sell the same thing and it includes a folding board. I have one that I keep my soccer jerseys in

Did anyone notice the McGuire actually got fewer votes on this ballot than the last. He's been declining for the past few years. This is what I think we'll see with all the steroid era guys. They will get fewer and fewer votes until their time passes or they are forgotten long before. There are guys coming up in the next few years that will make that happen, Then we'll start getting to guys like Jetter and the Bonds, McGuire, Sosa, Palmero of the world will be just a historical note in a storied history of the game.

Baseball is as much to blame for the steroid era as any player who made that choice. They were the last major sport to institute a policy of drug testing for performance enhancing drugs at the major league level when there testing was very strict in the minor league system. Were any of baseball's rules violated by the steroid users, no. Is the fact that some of the most storied records in the history of all sports fell because of artifical means, yes. Barry Bonds is another issue all together, he was a travisty to the game on and off the field and in every interaction he ever had with any human as a representative of the game. Not only the records that are falling due to the use of PED but how about all the money stolen from fans. Think about it, how much money did Ryan Braun make this season, how big of a contract did he secure and for how long? Who pays for that, you and I that's who. Higher ticket prices, higher food prices, additional seat license fees. Do you think he cares about that 50 game suspension, maybe a little, but how big of a deal is that going to be over the life of his contract and the multiple $10's of millions he's going to make. I really don't think guys today look at the HoF like players of the past or true lovers of this game who try to protect the traditions of the only sport left that honors it's past every day the way baseball does.

WOW....now there's a hot sports opinion!

Great thread, I'm going to give this a try on my shoes this year, actually my plate shoes tonight, they have a little end of season gunge on them. I've been giving them a good cleaning post and pre-game then going over them with Kiwi sponge polish and a quick spritz with water which beads on the polish after the game. I think i'll give them a good wax polish and lighter shine up and use this method between games. Maybe a silly question, but when ya'll are talking about scrubbing bubbles is this what I think it is or something specific for shoes?

Oh I agree, was being sarcastic with my comment about motivation. You're going to add a few more rule book umpires than you had before, some of the good umpires will put a little more into studying and the rest will just make a little more on the same level games they always did. Which would frost me knowing that just because some guy got a higher score on the test he makes more money and is still a poor umpire.

How are they going to use the score to determine pay? If I score higher than you do I make more per game or are they looking at the overall average score to set a pay grade for all of you, the higher the average score, the higher the per game fee. There's some motivation to get guys studying and putting up high scores.

We're 100% online in TX as far as I know; you get your score immediately after hitting submit. We can see the questions we missed to go back and research. We have to have the test completed by Feb 15th with 70% to be eligible for varsity games and 86% to be eligible for play-off consideration, just confirmed yesterday at our state meeting.

How about this one, and I've only really noticed it at one association here in DFW calling youth ball; two man crew so to "save time" they leave their ball bags on while working the field. Just doesn't work for me and looks terrible. Last time I checked it didn't take that long to put them on, unless these guys are the ones referenced above, you know like the guy who doesn't know how to tie a tie, gets tied once then loosens and slips over his head until the tie wears out.

I see a lot of the guys in the minors wearing that Nike, they are comfortable, that's for sure, but Nike running shoes don't work well for me.

I got mine from Umpire-attire.com. I've seen them pretty much everywhere online now and a couple local stores.