kylehutson

Same in my area.

Welcome!

It's a matter of expectation and possible consequences. The question is "is this a reasonable consequence of playing the sport?" Getting concussed because of a hard hit, yes. Because you got hit on your bare head by a helmet? no. I really think part of this is "do we want football to become like hockey where fights are just a common occurrence?" And even when fights do occur, is it at least a fair fight? If Garret had hit a helmet against a helmet or a fist against a head, it wouldn't be nearly as severe as a penalty.

Heavy compared to the others, yes. Heavy as in "you're going to have a hard time with it", not a chance. This is the one that I love, but primarily for a reason not shown here - it's notched so that you never have to look at it - you can "feel" the balls, strikes, and outs while it's still at your side. I had a friend borrowed mine and said something about it being heavy. I told him if that was the case, he really needed to work out more.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but you might be right.

Can you make some threads permanently unlocked (thinking like "Mask Porn") if you turn on that feature?

I don't know that the forum software would even have this capability (or why the author would add it without a specific request like this), but ideally, you could have an extra step in there that if a thread has been over a year (or whatever) without a reply, you have to click a button that says you know this, and are resurrecting on purpose before it lets you type a reply. Barring that... I say leave it. It's not like it happens frequently. There have even been a couple of times I have intentionally re-started a previous thread (and made note of such in my response). And we should (if we don't already) have a "new members" section that mention this. (Not that it was a new member last night, but in general to keep the annoyances to a minimum.) And for what it's worth I hadn't ever seen the resurrected threads from last night - they were from before I joined.

Welcome! You're in pretty much the same situation I was in a few years ago. You've found the best site on the Internet for learning more about umpiring. Lots of good, knowledgeable folks on here, but like @HokieUmp implies, it might do you well to do some searching before you ask a whole lot of questions. Glad to have you join us!

Realizing I'm speaking as a cis-gendered white hetero male here... I really think it's *mostly* (not all, certainly) a matter of interest. In my local high school ranks, I know some female referees for volleyball and basketball that are *very* good. And no baseball umpires (but a few softball umpires). I *think* that's because they officiate what they played. Basketball, check. Volleyball, check. Softball, check. Baseball, nope. I do want the best for my daughter, and tried to get her into officiating, but she isn't the least bit interested. Instead she's on her 3rd semester of college with a near full-ride academic scholarship and still has a 4.0. I let her decide what's the best for her, and she seems to be doing a pretty good job of that.

It's legal for KSHSAA. http://www.kshsaa.org/Publications/OfficialsHandbook.pdf (bottom of page 25) That doesn't mean that it's "normal" though.

Oh FerCryinOutLoud... How about this: https://images.app.goo.gl/6Fd6YZ5CDRQCxKYj6

It's showing up broken here, but it shows up correctly on my email. https://www.disneyclips.com/images/images/clipgoofytire.gif

Just to prove a point, I just did a youtube search for "mlb close plays at first base" and this was the first one that looked like what I was looking for: players trying to beat out a throw to first. Watch and see how many right-handed batters enter the running lane on a close play from "not behind them" (hint: none).

Everything you've said up to this point is spot-on, but I think you're off on this one. They run there not to get hit by the throw, but because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The straight line between a right-handed batters box and 1st base is entirely outside the running lane. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's more likely (not absolutely true, but more likely) that the fielder threw off-line in order to draw the interference call.