umped up

Batter squares to bunt, the pitch was a slow curveball, he fouled it back except this one had about a foot arch on it. The question is, when is it considered an out if the catcher catches it or a foul tip? On the above scenario, the catcher just missed it before it hit the ground, which made me wonder how i would have called that if he caught it before it hit the ground.

I would think "no call" because the fielder has the right to make a play on the ball and the runner has the right to the bag. "I have nothing"!

I know it's been awhile since I've bothered my fellow brothers but I have a few questions. What a busy and hot as hell season so far. On a KS, the ball deflects in front of the plate, F2 hollers "inside", right then BR immediately alters his path and starts running way inside the runners lane. F2 throws to F1 without issues........but. What if his throw is errant and goes into RF because the runner made him throw wider than expected? Is that interfernece? Does the throw need to hit BR? I'm hearing conflicting responses. I think that would be interference because he "intentionally" interferred with the throw. Thoughts.

This has never happened to me before and now on 2 seperate occasions in the last 2 weeks, it's happend twice. R1, base hit to right, R1 heading to 3rd, (I'm PU) I'm covering 3rd, R1 slides and the call is OUT! R1 immediately after his pop up slide, throws an elbow at the 3rd baseman, I immediately eject him. All is fine and good with that. Now the manager from the other team comes out and wants the BR to return to 1st base claiming without the thrown elbow, BR would have been thrown out at 2nd. HMMMMM. I know you cant assume an out. I met with my partner and we just left BR at 2nd. I have this discussion with other umpires and recieved mixed opinions. Some say if BR wasn't at second base yet, it's a dead ball and BR returns to 1B. If the 3rd baseman wasn't in the act of making a throw to 2nd during the elbow throw, leave BR there. I can see where this might boundary on interference if in the act of throwing. Is the ejection irrelevant on the baseball field as far as a dead ball goes. Sit 2 R1, R2, base hit, throw goes home (Im FU) throw is going to beat R2 by a mile....R1 is rounding 2nd and I notice him stopping hard between 2nd and 3rd seeing the low throw from the outfield and he'd be dead meat once F2 makes the easy tag and throws him out at 3rd. Well, right then, R2 plows into F2 and immediately get tossed out of the game, R1 (while the collision happened) continued on to 3rd easily. Now, nothing happened here with coaches, fans or parents but I was thinking....without the collision, R1 would have at the least be caught in a rundown. Would that also be interference on R2? He did impede on him attemping a throw to third or the opportunity to run at the runner. Hmmm

that starts to get a little too complicating. If there is a balk, you would think that all runners advance plus the batter for interference. why do they have to complicate these things by having different applications for different organizations? GEEZ... :FIRE:

PERFECT! Thank you for the rule. Just looked it up and it's clear. No more responses necessary. Thanks bro.

I was asked by another umpire while traveling to a game together a rules question. Pitcher in the set position W R3. R3 takes off for home. F-1 legally throws the ball home like a pitch but the catcher jumps in front of the plate to make a tag on R3. He asked what I had. I said it would be interference on F-2 for not allowing B1 the opportunity to swing at the pitch. He said, "nope". What? He said it was a balk since the ball never crossed the foul line. Hmmmmm. He said it's just like a pitcher dropping the ball on the mound and it not crossing the foul line. Never heard of this situation. I always thought it was interference on F2. Thoughts...

I paused the video just before he spins then hit play and pause again. It appears he actually lost ground. The front foot comes up and slightly back and down again. I did this 3-4 times over and it definitely appears he gained no ground whatsoever.

Here's where things went wrong. When you hear this, and see that's it coming from inside the dugout - he's gone. He should've been ejected before you even got to the dugout; when you get there, you're just shutting down the discussion and telling him to leave immediately. Then your partner never has an opportunity to let him stay. If I could only do it over again.......

I just learned a hard lesson. I can assure you that this kind of game will never (never say never) happen again as long as im involved. I should have overruled him and thrown the thug out of the park. I'm ashamed and embarassed. Who said anything about "overruling" someone. The BU has the same authority at the PU. If you decide something needs to be taken care of then do it. Yes but I always thought that the PU ruled the game as far as when he makes a decision, it's his decision. Period! He made the choice to keep the thug in the game, I allowed it because he was the chief. Sorry I didn't realize I should have overruled the one in charge....

I just learned a hard lesson. I can assure you that this kind of game will never (never say never) happen again as long as im involved. I should have overruled him and thrown the thug out of the park. I'm ashamed and embarassed. :ph34r:

Yes, thank you for that. My application needs some work. I'm definitely not an English teacher.

Im not too sure of that. The pitcher didn't square off, he just threw it up and in. The batter, because of all the hoopla, I assume, took a few steps towards the pitcher but digressed right away when ordered to. 1B also retreated once ordered and the game went on. I don't see where EJ's are warranted there.

Coaching travel ball, and seeing how generally poor the umpiring truly was, played a large part in convincing me to try umpiring. Why do the other sports have generally good officiating and umpiring such poor officiating. I haven't officiated any other sports but baseball but is it maybe that baseball is so much more complex than the other sports? There is so much to baseball and without proper training (which most don't get) your going to miss a lot of things. I know in my area, a lot of the umpires that I've worked with seem to do it for the money and not care too much about the game itself. I know of a guy who tells players if they cant afford league fees to help umpire youth baseball and he'll apply the games they do to their fees. Wow! They could do 6 games at $30 per and the $180 will be taken off his fees. Or, he could do all the games necessary to fulfill the total fee to play. Right there you are asking for a disaster. Zero experience and just throw them out there........ I had a post game with my partner and he didn't seem to see where the problem was. I told him that he should have tossed the guy in the dug out but he disagreed claiming that he thought he had him under control. He didn't understand where the problem was. I didn't want to piss him off and tell him his strike zone was garbage, so I said to him I thought the zone was a little inconsistent. He disagreed. He obviously wasn't seeing things that were right in front of him. He missed more things than balls and strikes in that game. He allowed a courtesy runner for an ex catcher until the coach said he couldn't do that. The other coach started spouting that PU already said he could. PU called time and brought me in. (at this time, I didn't realize the switch) I asked PU if the kid on first is the catcher at this point in time? He says no. Cant do it I said. He walks off and says, " my bad coach but he can't have a runner". One of many little things that I didn't bother bringing up. I asked my partner in the parking lot how many years of umpiring he had under his belt, he says, " quite a few". Hmmmmm. I would guess this was his first but ya never know......

Im sure soon enough it will end up on you tube. Supposedly, the whole incident was on video. That will be handy in court.