Sayhey

Sometimes ya gotta be patient enough to read til the "exception" part of the rule. I appreciate everyone on this site and your commitment to getting it right. We can raise the level of amateur umpiring if we work hard and help each other learn. Cheers!

It is a special rule for a rare situation. I have always called it a "catcher's balk". The pitcher is given a balk, but in reality it is the catcher that had violated a rule. Why a balk is called on the pitcher, I do not know, but it is a balk. "Time. That's a balk. Runner, you get home. Runner, you get third." Done deal. It's a big penalty for a big infraction.

Why should the pitcher not pay for his wild pitch? The runners deserve the right to move up even though their teammate hit the catcher with his backswing. Sometimes you have to look in casebook or read an interpretation of a rule. Sometimes you have to look at what has been ruled historically. The actual rule book is very poorly written.

The ball is dead on backswing if the catcher is not throwing against a runner. If the catcher is throwing against a runner the ball is live to give the catcher an opportunity to get an out. If the catcher's Initial throw does not retire a runner the ball is dead and all runners are returned to their T.O.P. base. If there is a wild pitch and the catcher has no play because of how far the ball is away from him you have a dead ball and all runners get 90 feet.

I got pretty dizzy trying to follow all this too. Not sure which one some of you think I have wrong. I have zero ego in all of this. If I am wrong I want to know and fix it. Maybe it is the wild pitch situation that sounds wrong. When the batter is guilty of backswing infraction and there is a wild pitch or passed ball all runners are allowed to move up only 1 base. The batter is guilty of an infraction but the pitcher has to take responsibility for the wild pitch. The wild pitch means all runners can move up a max of 1 base. The catcher is still free to throw a runner out but he probably won't unless the ball Bounces right back to him off the backstop.

Thanks guys for the wise words. Good stuff. This was a sophomore catcher catching on a Friday night with full stands. First time I saw him so I gave him the benifit of sought. I do not know if he was ignorant or if he had a bad attitude. I think it was ignorance. Best high school ball team in a town of 100,000. He should no better.

I am looking for advice on game management. I had my second catcher in 20 years turn on me and argue strike zone. The first one was 15 years ago and I immediately ejected him because he held his glove where he caught the ball as he turned and bitched about the no strike call. The physical movement meant the end of his day. This one the other night was different. This catcher turned and argued the call but made no other body language displays and he was not loud. I called time and swept off a clean plate and I told him not to turn on an umpire. Then I told him his actions were not helping his team. Is the latter part over a line and not helpful. I never heard another word from him and his coach never said a word except to tell me I was welcome back any time as I walked off the diamond. It was the first time I had worked for him. How have you handled catcher's turning on you?

Because Fed. rules people need to justify their paycheck they come up with new rules from time to time. Sometimes they even do away with rules like wanting an umpire to call runners out for missing a base when the defense does not do their job and does not appeal the missed base. Batter is out in Fed ball. In O.B.R. the batter is not out for backswing. You just return all runners to their time of pitch base if the catcher's initial throw does not cause a runner to be out. as soon as the initial throw does not retire a runner you have time, and return all runners.What about backswing infraction with a catcher throwing and retiring a runner in Fed. rules. Is it the same ad O. B.R.? Do we nullify the backswing in Fed. rules and leave the batter in the box and take the result on the field rather than call the batter out?

How about N.A.I.A. ??

If the catcher's initial throw does not retire a runner we have time out and all runners are returned to T.O.P. base.

You are right about that. It is ridiculous for me to say you misunderstand Jim about the balk. I apologize. Please forgive me sir. I want to learn and get the rules correct. I think rules are a small part of being a good umpire. Game management and mechanics are much more important. We are however, responsible to know the rules and sometimes it takes an interpretation to understand the rule and the purpose of the rule. I will call it any way as long as I have it correct. I may be wrong on this or Jaska/Roder may have neglected to put in the all important "exception". Everything J/R says may be true but they did not add the exception as Jim did. The reason I said you must misunderstand Jim is I found it hard to believe that Jim would not be in line with J/R. Jim is a hall of fame umpire in my opinion. I have had dinner with him and he has great stories and is a fine man.A Texan all the way. His mom drove him to his first assignments because he was only 14. . I was heartbroken about what happened with his school and I hope he comes back. Does anyone know what the latest news is for Jim? Sorry again if I offended you. We need to stick together and support each other. If Jim said it,that is good enough for me.

Chris Jaska and Rick Roder were triple A umpires They were frustrated by the awkwardness of the obr rule book. If you buy their book you will see that many current M.L.B. umpires endorse the work of Jaska/Roder. Jeff Nelson uses it as a textbook to teach in the off season. Joe Brinkman even writes an endorsement in the front of the book and he used to have his own umpire school. Jim Evans is a fine man and has given a lot to make umpiring a baseball game an art form as well as scientific. One scientific aspect would be angle over distance. I attended Jim's 5 day clinic in Tucson and a 2.5 clinic in Portland. This subject did not come up in short clinics. I only viewed Jim's balk video once and it was years ago. Jim's primary focus is on mechanics. When I attended his 5 day school we did not talk about any rules. Maybe someone who has attended his 5 week school will post and tell us what was taught at the 5 week school. Good umpires can disagree about an interpretation of a poorly written rule. That is why Chris Jaska and Rick Roder wrote an interpretation of the official rule book. M.L.B. umpires also make mistakes. When Don Mattingly visited his pitcher twice with the same batter hitting the crew in L.A. that night screwed the rule up. Mattingly was ejected by rule but the crew forced the relief pitcher to come in immediately. That is incorrect. The pitcher on the hill must pitch to the current batter and then the new pitcher is brought in. The goal here is to figure out the correct ruling and apply it on the field.

Page 142. Jaska/Roder interpretation. It is a balk if a pitcher steps to first base and throws to first baseman who, because of his distance from the base, is (or would have been) unable to try a tag against the runner at first base. Can not be much clearer than that explanation

You misunderstand Jim. The rules state that an in contact pitcher must throw to 1st base. Some grace is allowed. If the 1st baseman is close enough to 1st base that he can glove a throw and apply a tag that is considered close enough to the 1st bag bag.

Did some further study on this one. Great example play. If the second baseman is still trying to "glove" the ball, or is trying to gain possession after he has gloved the ball he is protected. If he has gloved the ball and has possession he is no longer trying to field. He is no longer protected. He is now trying to tag R-1. Tags can be violent. This one was kinda like bumper cars. I so not have malicious contact. I do not have a runner trying to break up 2. I do not have interference. I just have baseball. Thanks for the lesson learned.

With the rule change you can no longer throw to the 3rd baseman off the bag. It has already been called a balk in the 2013 M.L.B. season. You can throw to a ss or 2nd baseman well off the bag with no chance of making a play. The reason for that is a pitcher is not required to throw to second when he is in contact. He must throw to 1st base and now this year he must throw to 3rd base. No feints to third anymore. The 1st baseman does not let the pitcher know that he is playing in or back and when the pitcher steps toward 1st base to throw the 1st baseman is not there. The pitcher can throw the ball directly over 1st base if he wants to and avoid a balk but the ball would go wild past 1st base and R-1 may get third. If the pitcher throws to the 1st baseman, and now the third baseman when they are off the bag it is a balk. The fielder must be able to glove the throw and apply a tag immediately. I called this and a coach thought I was making rules up. He was astounded that an umpire could make this call. 15 min. after his pitcher was called for this balk I called a balk on the opposing pitcher for stepping and throwing to 1st base but the ball "slipped" out of his hand and slowly rolled toward short right field. This is a balk because the throw lacked aim and momentum for a 1st baseman to glove a throw and apply a tag. The initial coach probably thought I made this one up as well but at least this one went in his favor.

M.L.B. umpires make it look easy. Yes, he would look better locked in and set. He also should be in the B position. Umpires that stubbornly take steals from the C position instead of the B got the memo and did not like it. Triple A umpires are in the B position. PAC 12 umpires are in the B position. Many of the Div. 1 umpires are former triple A umpires and are better umpires than M.L.B. umpires. Wally needs to pass by the buffet table. At least he does not chase players all the way back to the dugout anymore. He used to be a shouter. All triple A umpires would have been set when making this call.

Thank you Johnny08 for bringing this play up. This is why I love Umpire Empire. Great training tool. Thank you umpjm for your insight. I believe you are correct. I looked at the clip 5 times. The first 2 times I thought I had interference and maybe a double play. Then I read umpjm's thoughts and watched the clip 3 more times. I think what we have is a fielder that has transitioned from fielding a ball to a tag attempt. The fielder has that imaginary yield/stop sign on him until he changes from a fielder attempting to field to a fielder attempting a tag. The imaginary yield/stop sign goes out and he is no longer "protected". The fielder and R-1 both fall backward to the ground as the tag is made and the fielder throws to first. The announcer says the run scores. If he is correct interference was not called. Sounds like it was a live ball and incidental contact on the tag. R-1 is out #2.Batter/runner is safe and R-3 scores.If the ball had been dislodged during the tag attempt the ball would be live and the defense might still get an out or maybe everyone would be safe. Is that how you see it? I learned something here. This is exciting and very valuable. Thanks Umpire Empire.

If the catcher is throwing you let the play happen. If the catcher's initial throw does not retire the runner you call time and return the runners. If you have a wild pitch on backswing interference( the ball is away from the catcher) the runners are allowed to move up 1 base only. Backswing interference is a special type of batter interference. Feds have this as batter interference and the batter is out. Don't call it that way. He defense does not deserve an out on this infraction

I was at Cadlestick Park when Barry stole base #400. I was in row 10 behind home plate when he broke Henry Aaron's record. A combination of speed and power. Barry also broke Ruth's record for walks. Barry would not swing at a pitch out of the strike zone. He constantly was ahead in the count. He played a good left field.Barry would take batting practice without a bat to sharpen his hitting eye. When you can prove all the current H.O.F. members are Boy Scouts you can keep Mr.Bonds out. Ty Cobb was a miserable human and he got in on the first ballot. The night in San Francisco that Barry broke Henry's record he did it on A.B. # 3. In A.B. #1 he ripped a double that was hit extremely hard. A line drive. In A.B. # 2 he ripped a single even harder. Line drive. In A.B. # 3 with John Hirshbeck behind the plate, he worked the count to 3-2 in typical Barry Bonds fashion. A patient hitter. As soon as he touched the 3-2 pitch everyone knew it was a homer. He hit it out to the biggest part of the ballpark. Steroids have nothing to do with breaking all time walk records and on base percentage records. He was an extremely disciplined hitter. The yard in S.F. is not a hitter's park but he overcame that as he did at Candlestick. I am not the president of the Bonds fan club. He could be an ass. He grew up with an absentee father who drank a lot. He also saw the press hammer his father Bobby and he grew up distrusting the press. Judge him harshly if you must but you can not deny he was one of the greatest players ever, no matter how much he weighed.

It is called interference without a play. Ken Kaiser called Rickey Henderson on it. You can read about it in Ken Kaiser's book. Kaiser called a runner out at third after Rickey scored and then interfered with the catcher

How about Darryl Cousins, who for some reason does not like to wear a mock t-shirt or a crew under his umpire shirt. Looks like you do not care. Yesterday James Hoye had a black t-shirt under polo blue and whoever was working 2nd had on white. Shouldn't the crew match?

Johnny Mac probably would not finish many baseball games had he been a player. "You can not be serious!"

You can eject post game. Suspensions and fines may follow

We have arrogant asshole and "you blew it". Lighten up. The man asked for help. You can help without all the judgement. Ms Taylor's wise advice is spot on. Great situation to learn from. You can not learn unless you put yourself out there. Keep working hard. None of us were there. Ejections are not all created equal. Some are absolute and no one questions your decision. Some ejections are questionable and may gnaw at you and cause you to question your own judgement. What did your partner think about the ejection? What did your mentor think about it? How about the head umpire of the league? If the coach is turning or has turned and is headed back to his dugout you can give him some leeway. Try to turn the coach so he is facing the grandstands and all can see that he is out of control. The umpire that said do not even talk to the coach until he calms down is right on. I ejected a 1st base coach for sprinting toward me after a call. That is automatic. Coaches are not allowed to charge at umpires. This call ended a half inning. I ran to short rt. field to my in between inning spot and the 1st base coach charged out toward me shouting and very upset. I never discussed the call with him. He was gone before he got to me. The only words I had for him were get off the diamond. You are done for the night. Another good technique is after the coach had calmed down, if he does, say,"coach, do you have a question for me." If he can not formulate a question and he does not want to hear what you saw then the conversation is over. This should all be less than 1 min. Another tool you can use is say," coach, we are done talking. I am going to go to my position. If you follow me you will be ejected." Use your tools. Good luck