StrikeToWin

I also tried this last night in a 12U game. Unfortunately it was really bad "wreck" ball but I did notice that when the ball was near the zone, I was able to track better. Problem is, pitching wasn't near the zone all that much.

I'm not bashing the EJ since I was not there, but I am curious, did he only tomahawk the bat and hang on to it or did he verbalize something as well. Maybe I have been interpreting actions incorrectly but I see this more as a frustration thing with letting a good pitch go by and will simply ignore as long as the bat does not come loose. If this is something I need to reevaluate then I will.

USSSA allows for a game to be completed with 8 and uses OBR rules with slight modifications. In tournaments for CBO if a player is injured and can not continue, that spot in the line up becomes an automatic out. If you are playing with only 8 players then the 9th spot in the line up is an out. We had a situation come up with a player that pulled a hamstring while running to 1B and had to leave the game. We had to call him out because there were no subs available (batting full roster) and he could not run for himself and you can only courtesy for pitcher and catcher. Every time his spot came up in the line up, he was out.

Had a coach ask where a pitch missed and I said it was up and in. He told me that it wasn't up since I called the exact same pitch on the previous batter a strike. I said the previous batter was 6 foot, this guy isn't even 5 foot. He told me "that doesn't matter, the strike zone doesn't change!"

In A, I think you did everything correct. You can not re-enter a pitcher after you have pulled him from the mound. He can play anywhere else on defense except pitch. In sit. B I think you should have allowed him to re-enter because they really didn't pull him, just kept him from taking his turn at bat one time for which they took the appropriate penalty of an out. If he is now ok to hit, then he just hits in his normal spot. I don't think that's something you can go back and fix in the manner that you did by taking a run off the board and calling an out. Also as an umpire, I'm not going to the score keeper unless the other team brings it up. Just my opinion though.

I had a first baseman/pitcher that had a birth defect that did not allow him to use his right hand at all, it was there he just couldn't really grip anything with it. He was quite impressive with how quick he got his hand to the glove after pitching or glove off of his hand after catching at first to make a following play. He also hit pretty well. His right hand was on the bat, but you could tell it was just there and not really assisting with his swing.

Unfortunately, especially during league, we don't even do plate introductions anymore since we all know each other. I have a daughter that goes to school with half of the high school kids that play league at our park and my daughter has even worked at the park so a lot of the kids know me (yes, a few have even been to my house or go to church with me) but once on the field they know I don't play favorites. When I do the few HS games that I get, there is no familiarity with the coaches or players since I only work 3 or 4 dates per year due to work schedule. The coaches and the players don't always agree with my call but they at least know it is not personal when I'm on the field.

When my partner told me this, the guys that work the field crew were just asking me questions about my call in the earlier game since I was at the field while they were working it. Yeah, we do league at our park but we also do a lot of tournaments so we do have a lot of "visiting" teams come in. I like to think that I keep my objectivity and unbiased calls, but I don't know. I like the tournaments because I get to see different teams rather than the same teams that I see every week and it's a nice change. It's tough not to talk to the guys that work the field crew and sometimes they have some good rules questions and actually think about the game. Some of those same players have even expressed interest in becoming umpires so we talk about that.

So this weekend at a tournament, I worked with a guy that doesn't normally work at our park and he told me that I am too familiar with the players and coaches. I understand that he works a lot of varsity HS and collegiate ball, but most of my work is done at one park (my work schedule does not allow me to work very much HS ball) so I know a lot of the coaches and a lot of the players. I got to thinking about this and wondered how some of you all handle this. I have worked the same park for 4 years now and I have watched some of these kids playing the whole time. Now, most of the players know that I don't play favorites and I will still call them like I see them, but is there a point that you get too familiar with the teams that you see week in and week out? Some of those players that I have known for years also work the field crew and I had their game earlier in the day with a different partner and they were asking about a call that happened in their game (my call, not partners call) and my new partner shut them down immediately and said we won't be discussing plays from an earlier game. They were not involved in the game that was about to be played, they were working the field since they were out of the tournament. I guess I am just curious how you can work at a place, and see the same kids and coaches several times per year and not become familiar with them?

Ok, just curious, let's say that batter #5 comes up and takes his turn at bat and they get to batter #6 and so now we have skipped batter # 3 and the defense has just now figured this out, do we still have a BOO situation, or do we just continue on and # 3 missed? I guess my question is, when does the defense lose their ability to appeal a BOO?

I had a similar "Time" situation to @MidAmUmp , had a coach telling his kids to request time every time they slid back in to a base, I told them I didn't have to grant time and they told me that I did. Next time there was a throw over, the ball went down the RF line but the runner put his hand up requesting time. I called "Time" but the runner didn't hear me nor did the coach and R1 took off and reached 3B because the foul territory at that field was HUGE. When I told the runner he had to return to 1B, he asked why? Asked him if he put his hand up to request time and he said yes so I told him that I granted him time while he was still on first. When he got back to 1B, I looked at him and the 1B coach and said "That gentlemen is why you don't request time so much". Didn't have another runner requesting time the rest of the night.

Got called last Saturday to fill in at a pretty good sized tourney for two games. The umpire I filled in for had gone down earlier in the day (last I heard, he was OK just over heated that day with temps in the mid 90's and about 80% humidity). When I got there, my partner asked me if I could work both plates since he had worked this tourney the last 4 days and was on game 15 and 16 plus had already done two plates that day. I agreed and we started the first game at 5:20 played 6.5 innings and we were done at 6:40. We get the second game going at 7:10 and played 6 innings and the home team went up by 8 in the bottom of 6 for a run rule and we were walking off the field at 8:45. Talking to my partner, he said that every game he had worked before those 2 had gone at least 2 hours. I always see guys talking about fast games and getting done but this was the quickest I had ever gotten through a double header. Plus it was good ball and I got to work with a college umpire (levels I normally do are less than spectacular). I felt like I had a solid zone all night and kept the games moving. Had a pitcher throwing upper 80's to low 90's and I handled it pretty well. Most of the pitching I see is subpar and rarely touches 80. All in all it was a great night.

As @noumpere said, the batter stepped back and hindered F2's throw. I think that any umpire that has been around for more than a game or 2 would have gotten INT on this. It was not subtle, just have never ended a game in this manner.

I also had the hands are part of the bat conversation this weekend on swinging dead ball strike that hit the kids hands. The best though was the varsity coach telling me I needed to know my rules on the balk. It was quite comical especially when the UIC told him an inning later that I nailed the call and he was wrong.

Had an interesting weekend of state U-Trip ball. 12AA - Had a game end on batters interference. Bottom 4, HT down 9-8, 2 Outs. Batter stepped back as F2 dropped back to make the throw to 3B, ball hits bat and goes flying, R2 (tying run) rounded 3rd and headed home all while I have my hands up yelling "Interference", when the dust settled and I told the HTHC that I had BI, he went a little crazy(not terrible) telling me that I can't end a game like that. I called ball game and he grumbled a bit more but eventually let it go. It was a tough way to lose but definitely the right call, of course I heard the usual, he has a right to the box, he didn't do anything wrong, he can't just disappear, we was still in the box blah, blah, blah. 13A - Had a HC that is a local Varsity head coach at a small HS that took the 6th graders that will be playing JH ball next year and played them in U-Trip this spring. They are a good scrappy team but were younger than most of the other teams due to the fact that they had one kid that didn't meet the age cutoff so the entire team played up, they definitely competed though as they finished 2nd in the tourney. In the championship game the HT was setting their batters at the front of the box and the AC kept saying they were stepping out of the box. PU told them that he had them in the box, they continued to chirp about it a bit but nothing huge. About the bottom 3, we have R3 and F1 steps directly towards 3B without disengaging and does not throw the ball, I immediately call "Balk!" He comes out to me and asks why it is a balk. I told him that he couldn't feint to 3B. Of course since he is a varsity coach he knows for sure that you can feint to 3B. I told him that we weren't playing under Fed ruleset and we were playing under OBR which is what U-Trip uses he of course just knew that I was wrong. I told him that since it is a rules application, he is more than welcome to protest, put up 100.00 and we would call the UIC and TD down to make a ruling. He chose not to do that and we continued. Overall it was a good fun weekend of baseball, just a couple of wacky things that you don't normally see.

​Until the next play and then the other half will think you're blind and ought to retire so by the end of an inning 100% of the people that aren't dressed like you will think you are blind and ought to retire.

I had a coach tell me that any batted ball that hits the plate first before going into fair territory is a foul ball, his runner stopped running as I'm pointing fair and made an easy out at 1B. Coach asked me if it hit the plate, "yes it did", "I thought that was a foul ball", "nope, plate's in fair territory", "Hmmm.... learn something new every day". I just had to chuckle after he said that considering he was coaching HS age kids.

Now I'm curious, is this something that we as umpires should automatically enforce, or should it only be called on appeal?

Yeah, I did and that's when I figured out that I had ruled on it incorrectly @MadMax . That's another reason I love this site. It keeps me humble by pointing out that I don't know as much as I thought I did.

I had this almost identical situation happen and I incorrectly called a "BALK". No one said anything at the time but I learned from it and will no how to handle it the next time it happens.

I believe that it is nothing until the defense asks for a missed base appeal. And then you are only getting an out for the runners that missed the plate so R1 and R2. Someone with more knowledge than me will chime in but I think they even have to both be appealed, not just a general appeal at the plate. As an umpire, you shouldn't make that call without an appeal nor bring it to the defenses attention.

It's raining in my neck of Oklahoma.

It's very similar in that I knew my partner missed the ruling and called the balk inappropriately, but then he didn't even want to talk about it. I stepped in it when I overruled on the field. It wouldn't have mattered what I had done, my partner would have stuck with the call no matter what because "YOU CANNOT THROW TO AN UNOCCUPIED BASE WITHOUT FIRST DISENGAGING THE RUBBER!" So if there had been an appeal on the application, it would have went like this: Board President: Was there a play to be made? Partner: Doesn't matter, you can't throw to an unoccupied base from the rubber. BP: Unless there is a play eminent. P: It doesn't matter, you can't throw to an unoccupied base. BP: Here is the rule...... 8.05d P: You still can't throw to an unoccupied base BP: Except for the purpose of making a play, so was there a play? P: Doesn't matter. You still can't throw to an unoccupied base. Repeat, repeat and the award the protest to the correct team. He would never admit that he made a mistake.

He didn't want to even talk about it after the game. I did learn from it and now I need to quit beating myself up about it. There's another game to work and try not to suck.

I inserted myself into my partners call when I shouldn't have. I was as much wrong as he was. It wasn't my place to correct it right there.