Strike3urout

I have walked before to stay in shape but this year I bit the bullet and decided to buy a Trek 4300 mountain bike. I made a deposit on it and it should get to my local bike shop in Evansville by the middle of next week. I'm just going to ride it on country roads near where I live but I was totally unimpressed with the junky light weight bikes they had at local stores like ****'s Sporting Goods and Target. I'm also getting a computer on it that will tell me how many miles I ride, how long I've rode it and the outside temperature.

In my area I have quickly noticed that the top of my strike zone depends on the quality of the team usually designated by the quality of the pitching. For games that both teams struggle to throw strikes and don't have blazing fast pitching I don't hesitate to call the 1-2-3 top of the zone. When a mediocre pitcher throws a high strike it is often an easy pitch for a good hitter to tee off on. When the teams have better pitching I have noticed when I'm working the bases that my HP partner gets chewed on a lot for the high strike. Some good pitchers with great fastballs throw the high pitch as a waste pitch on 0-2 because it looks good halfway there and when the batter starts to swing and protect the plate he's too late to take it. When a hard throwing pitcher throws a high strike it is very difficult for a good pitcher to hit fair. They may foul it back to the screen or pop it up but they don't very often hit it for a base hit.

I have 39 HS games scheduled for the spring but at least 10-15 will get rained out here in cold wet Southern Illinois. I usually work 3-4 games a week and every other weekend or so I do a double header. Spring season starts the third week of March and ends with the Regionals in the third week of May so the season is only about eight weeks long.

Just a quick post about the staff at New Balance Web Express. I bought a new pair of 450's back in August '08. Told my wife to put them under the tree as a Christmas present as I'm notoriously hard to please and almost anything I want I've already bought for myself. Opened up the present on Christmas Day. I acted very suprised and very pleased. Never tried them on. Last week I decided to try them on because I was stuck in the house during an Illinois ice/snow storm. They were too small and didn't fit. Called the 800# and told the staff I didn't still have the box and didn't have the instructions on how to return them. I told them I don't umpire for another month yet so I never wore them not even once. The staff guy looked up my purchase order # and told me where to ship them back to New Balance Web Express. He told me they would give me a store credit and then I could re-order them in the right size. I got the email confirmation that they got them Thursday so that evening I called them and ordered the next bigger size. They told me the total comes out even with the previous purchase and they told me since the shoes were over $100 they ship them to me free. I should get them by Monday and I'm looking forward to wearing them this year. I'm tremendously happy with the New Balance staff and they are really trying hard to keep their customers happy. :clap:

Most HS baseball teams in Southern Illinois pay only $40-45 a game. Teams in the Black Diamond Conference do pay $55 which I think is a fair rate. The other interesting thing is when I work a DH the team almost NEVER gives you more than $30 bucks for the second game. Should I only pay attention 1/2 the time when the second game only pays around 1/2 price or am I expected to call them both the same? I had a partner one time that after seeing the cut in pay on a DH check ask the coach, "Which game is the full price game? The first one or the second one?" B)

My HS season starts on 3/17/09. I've got 14 games scheduled for March and the over/under on how many actually get played due to rain/mud/snow presently sits at 7!! :GL:

I would like to get input from the HS umpires on this site to this question. I have 45 HS baseball/softball games scheduled between mid-March through mid-May. Here is southern Illinois I usually lose about a 1/3 to rainouts. Comments welcomed.:GL:

Thanks for the replies. I switched to a BLACK Rawlings Cool-Flow hockey style mask three seasons ago and I will never go back. I like the vision improvement I get with it and I like the protection given to the top of my head. I take it off with my left hand whenever I go down the first base line on a routine play and I take it off on a passed ball or a runner trying to score with a play at the plate. I switched for basically two reasons: 1) I always stand in the slot and I took a foul ball off an 85 mph (approximately) fastball and it yanked my traditional mask all the way around to the side of my head. It also gave me a raging headache for the next few hours and the next day my jaw also hurt. 2) I was working the bases and the PU took a foul ball off the top of his head wearing a traditional mask and it knocked him unconscious (sp?)as he fell to the ground right where he stood. It wasn't really a hard pitch or a hard foul it was just the fact that it hit him on the top of his head where his traditional face mask gave him any protection. I finished the game for him as when he came around I insisted that he go to the hospital. I saw him the next week and he didn't have any major problems but he had a headache off and on for about 4 days. I work high school baseball games in Illinois and I have talked to some other IHSA umpires that would "never" wear a hockey style mask. One reason they often give is that you can't wear your traditional "beanie" hat with a HSM and when you take your HSM off your head is bare. I personally don't care if my head is bare or not. I don't care if the "powers that be" would rate me lower because I don't wear a hat and thus "I could never work the state finals". I don't care about how it looks to IHSA raters and I don't care if I ever work the state finals. Not a big deal to me. I have worked the first round of the IHSA playoffs which are the Regionals in both baseball and softball wearing my HSM. The fact that I have only been an umpire for 8 years means that the guys who have worked 20 years PLUS are going to get assigned the next level of the playoffs and especially the state finals. Not a big deal to me. I always wear clean and unwrinkled grey pants and I like the IHSA logo on the blue umpire shirts I get from Honig's. I always wear either base shoes or plate shoes and they are always clean. I always wear the blue IHSA logo hat on the bases and my black HSM behind the plate. I have a West Vest Platinum I wear behind the plate plus of course shin guards under my plate pants. I have a good habit of holding my indicator in my left hand and making strike and/or out calls with my right hand. None of the above apparel causes me to be at greater risk of getting hurt. In my opinion my HSM KEEPS me from getting hurt unnecessarily when working the plate and potentially getting hurt by foul balls. Like most if not all of the posters on this site I have a full-time job that I work and I work baseball games as a hobby. If wearing my HSM keeps me from getting hurt at my hobby and thus keeps me from missing work or losing my job altogether than I am all for it. I'm not saying EVERYONE should wear a HSM. I'm just advocating that any umpire that wants to should borrow one of their partners for one or two games and make the decision for themselves. :HD:

Which do you prefer? Have you tried both? Why do you like one over the other? Discuss.

You might be a Smitty if....... ---you refuse to ask your BU partner on a check swing "Did he go?" ---you tell the coach during the game "Man you really do have a good team!":WTF

You might be a Smitty if............. ---as the BU you go talk to the home plate umpire every freakin' half inning like he's got gold in his cup --on a slide and tag play at home plate you say "Show me the ball" and when the catcher shows you the ball you say "SAFE!" :)