ElkOil

If that's all it will take, this is as good as done. My mom and my wife are both Jersey girls and we've been living the good life here feeling relieved that we never have to deal with winter again. They'll invite your wife down for a cup of cawfee and that'll be that.

We need umpires here in Texas, Rich.

I agree with you on all counts. What needs to be done is never a debate. But what hinders progress is time, money and resources and all our associations and ourselves included face a lot of competition for our time. My association tries every year to implement a mentor/evaluation program. So far, though, finding people to commit to it has proven too difficult to make it work. So what we're left with is -- to your point -- the culture within the organization and positive examples from our peers. And it leaves guys frustrated who lack perhaps the same drive to self-teach and learn from resources outside of the games they umpire. They're left wondering what they have to do to improve and move up.

What? No. The point to the OP was that -- as hoped -- things would settle down once someone was bounced and our friend learned and shared a good lesson about game management. Ditto.

Anything from any of the other coaches during the game?

You: Good afternoon, Catch. I'm Mad. Catcher: Was it something I said? You could really give a guy a complex.

To forgive culpability insinuates I was culpable in the first place. I was not. Nor are any of us culpable for the behaviors of anyone else. I can't make sense of assigning culpability to anyone but the two coaches in this scenario, nor are any of us responsible for the actions of others... whatever you may have rationalized to yourself.

You haven't really become a party to anything that happens off the field. They're responsible for their actions, so they're on their own with that stuff. As long as the problems leave the field, that's the best we can hope.

Sound logic. MadMax's question about when the ball became dead can give us some more clues about how this was handled. For example, if the runner passed the base and time was called before she returned, an unfair advantage was given to the defense. Time should be called only after the play is over since the baserunner is allowed to correct a mistake.

By the time the exchange was heated, it was too late. If you saw something weird before that, nip it by telling them it won't tolerated and perhaps warn them. That way, if something else does occur, you can quickly eject the offender. But when it got to where one coach was goading the other into a fight, that's got to be the end of his day at the field. Eject him. That cannot be tolerated and very few things go well once people reach that level of anger. I'm guessing these were father coaches who got entirely too wrapped up in their egos or whatever. But it was a game for 10 year old kids. Nothing more. I take it the tournament director didn't do anything, which given stories I've heard isn't a surprise. You'll have to rely on your game management abilities.

Making up your own rules, guidelines and judgments is no way to umpire. You don't have the authority to create these no-call zones. You are paid to be the arbiter of the rules others have created -- your duty is to learn and enforce them appropriately. Making calls using your method is problematic at best. Coach: Hey why didn't you call obstruction?! You: Coach, that happened in the no-call zone. Coach: That WHAT?! You: The no-call zone or "NCZ" for short. The area around the plate when the Batter and Catcher collide in a situation where neither player makes an intentional or unusual move that breaks up a play or causes the runner to fall, stumble, or slow. I judge there to be a “No-Call Zone” under every rules set I call. Coach: [Goes back to dugout shaking his head. Later calls your association and has you scratched for eternity. Drinks heavily in hopes of erasing the memory of your on-field explanation.]

What do you tell people to call you? "Blue?" "Ump?" "Mister LRZ?" It's interesting to me that you're more comfortable with someone calling you generic titles instead of your own name that you've had your whole life. In my chapter they emphasize being approachable to high school players and coaches since the endeavor is primarily an educational one and we're there to officiate and help when we can. I introduce myself to everyone with my first name, though they rarely remember it. I'm with @Richvee and feel it's refreshing when they do. But as a matter of positive social interaction, like anywhere else in my life, I introduce myself by name. Whether anyone uses it or not is a different story.

This is one we'd have to see to make a determination. Contact can be incidental and not warrant an interference call.

FED 2-28-4: A pitch ends when the pitched ball: a. is secured by the catcher, b. comes to rest, c. goes out of play, d. becomes dead, e. or the batter hits the ball (other than a foul tip). I'd say no to your wonderment since an uncaught third strike isn't considered caught when F2 picks it up, so it doesn't matter whose glove it winds up in. It's still an uncaught third strike. I'm sure someone will prove how wrong I am in 3... 2... 1...

Luckily, you don't have to define a catch since FED has already done it for you: A catch is the act of a fielder in getting secure possession in his hand or glove of a live ball in flight and firmly holding it, provided he does not use his cap, protector, mask, pocket or other part of his uniform to trap the ball. The catch of a fly ball by a fielder is not completed until the continuing action of the catch is completed. A fielder who catches a ball and then runs into a wall or another player and drops the ball has not made a catch. A fielder, at full speed, who catches a ball and whose initial momentum carries him several more yards after which the ball drops from his glove has not made a catch. When the fielder, by his action of stopping, removing the ball from his glove, etc., signifies the -initial action is completed and then drops the ball, will be judged to have made the catch. The same definition of a catch would apply when making a double play. It is considered a catch if a fielder catches a fair or foul ball and then steps or falls into a bench, dugout, stand, bleacher or over any boundary or barrier, such as a fence, rope, chalk line, or a pregame determined imaginary boundary line from the field of play. Falling into does not include merely running against such object. (See 2-24-4 for fielder juggling ball and 8-4-1c for intentionally dropped ball; 2-16-2 and 5-1-1d for ball striking catcher before touching his glove.) It is not a catch when a fielder touches a batted ball in flight which then contacts a member of the offensive team or an umpire and is then caught by a defensive player.

I'm having trouble picturing the runner from 2B coming around prior to a throw from F2 to F3. But anyway, assuming this is a FED game: Rule 9 Scoring — Record Keeping SECTION 1 HOW A TEAM SCORES ART. 1 . . . A runner scores one run each time he legally advances to and touches first, second, third and then home plate before there are three outs to end the inning. EXCEPTION: A run is not scored if the runner advances to home plate during action in which the third out is made as follows: a. by the batter-runner before he touches first base So to directly address your question, no, this isn't equivalent to a force out. No run can score by rule.

Nice to have you! Like Maven said, catchers are good candidates for umpires, so you've got a good foundation to build on. Hopefully, your learning will never end and like any activity, there are endless opportunities to grow and improve. There's always something to work on, rules to learn, mechanics to improve and so forth. If you read this board regularly, you'll learn a ton.

You'd call interference. Intent is not relevant when determining if a player interfered. It's almost never a no-call.

Fair enough! ap·po·site ˈapəzət/ adjective apt in the circumstances or in relation to something. "an apposite quotation" synonyms: appropriate, suitable, fitting, apt, befitting; More

Here I go ramping up the Googler again. I swear... you and your vocabulary.

Award bases as your judgement dictates. The defense can then appeal the missed base and you'd rule accordingly.

The umpire must judge where the ball was relative to the line when it was touched to determine fair or foul. So in your example, it was a foul.

If this all escalated into a fight after the game, it was mishandled from the get-go. If the umpire kicked the player out of the dugout, assuming this was a high school game, that was a misapplication of the ejection rule, since any ejected player must remain in the dugout. If what you're conveying is accurate, there is so much wrong with how this was handled it can't be adequately addressed on this forum. Suffice to say that it seems the umpire has a lot to learn about game management and rules application. Problems like this must be dealt with early on so they don't escalate, and it needs umpires who are adept at seeing it for what it is so they can put a stop to it before it gets out of hand.

This post belonging in a different forum notwithstanding, I'll address the issue you raised. Like Maven said, we can't know your association's training practices, but I'll say this: I don't know anyone among us who thinks our associations give at least the right amount of training because most of our organizations are spread pretty thin. You're going to hit the field for the first time feeling under-prepared, and that's normal. That's why many of us take lots of scrimmages, then begin our careers in low-level ball like sub-varsity, rec league and below. We may spend years at these levels before moving up to varsity ball or college. The point is that your success is up to you. I recommend you take as many games as possible, ask questions, seek out criticism and listen with an open mind to what may be painful input, go to clinics outside your association, stink up some baseball games, make lots of mistakes, blow more than your share of calls, listen to parents and coaches holler at you, suck it up, get back on the field and become better for it. Use resources like this forum and become a true student of umpiring. Your journey is only beginning.

I would contend that a debate in the scientific community would hold more sway than a debate about the same subject in the umpiring community. Although we have lots of personal experiences, we're not a scientific body (understanding that individuals among us may certainly be scientists who have experience in this field). And I know guys like MadMax have studied this with great enthusiasm.