kylehutson

Just saw this and knew I had to insert it into this conversation...

https://babylonbee.com/news/to-increase-excitement-mlb-to-allow-each-team-to-call-in-one-tactical-air-strike-on-outfield-per-game/

Any live runner can physically assist other runners. However, a trailing runner cannot pass a preceding runner. So if the Batter-Runner (BR) pushes the runner that started on 1st (R1), that's fine. If BR clearly passes (i.e., closer to 2nd than R1 is), then BR is out (even if it's because R1 was running backwards toward 1st).

20 hours ago, MadMax said:

These RefSmart timers, with dipswitches, are the NFHS of the timer/time-keeping world, ie. they are the lowest, crudest denominator of complexity. A party-favor digital watch I get for 50 tokens at Chuck E Cheese has more complexity... How? The party favor has a fricken' screen! (Crude that it may be). In another comparison, even a simple television remote – with no screen, per se – can be connected to a computer via USB and reprogrammed, often thru a simple web portal. Why wasn't this employed? Why use an abacus when a calculator is available??

But here's the difference. How many of those "party favors" did they make in that batch? 100,000? 1,000,000?

What's RefSmart's total possible market? 20k?

Certainly not enough to get any real economy of scale. 

7 hours ago, JSam21 said:

There is no software on them. The are set by dipswitches. If the dipswitch configuration can't get the proper timing, the board needs to be replaced. 

There is software on them - on an EEPROM chip most likely. The dipswitches just tell the EEPROM what mode it's in. There SHOULD be an updatable firmware.

On 11/16/2024 at 9:49 PM, BLWizzRanger said:

Quite frankly, as an engineering major a long long time ago, my digital lab had a project very similar to this. I've lost the skills to make this, but, its not that hard.

I still have the skills to do this. What I lack is the time and gumption. If those two things ever coincide, there will be an open-source refsmart-like device available.

4 hours ago, 834k3r said:

Being F3, I imagine their sales pitch will be that it kills the bounce on blocked balls--which as you know, my dear former catcher, is nice for those in the squat.

What it means for umps? We don't care how far a ball bounces after it hits us.

Further - if it hits me, that means the catcher missed it. I hope it bounces to the dugout and the runners all advance.

On 9/1/2024 at 8:45 PM, BLWizzRanger said:

Don't holler "I have no balls" when teams are lackadaisical in bringing baseballs back to you in time during a game.

Or if you do, be sure to enunciate so the grandma in the back of the bleachers can hear. And make it "I don't have any balls!"

(I've never done this, but I've been sorely tempted a couple of times with teams that I knew would know I said it on purpose.)
 

23 hours ago, BLWizzRanger said:

because you can't just say "dead" when it is needed.

I do have one guy I regularly work with that does exactly this. He's never gotten any pushback from it that I've seen.

As for the original question. I've had the "dead ball" coached out of me by others (but also when I started, I also got so much training that I wore my hat backwards and tapped my fists together on a full count). Honestly, I now do what my evaluators ask of me. I'm just a soldier in the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Welcome aboard!

I got my start pretty much the same way, except my son was 10 when he started (my small town's rec league only requires umpires to be 2 years older than the age they're umpiring, so at 10 he could umpire 8U). He gave it up by the time he graduated high school (and never worked anything beyond our rec league), but I took a liking to it and stuck with it.

You've found the best online resource for umpires on the Internet. I promise that if you read here for awhile, you'll be a much better umpire for it. You'll actually get correct, rulebook answers (as opposed to the online arguing and know-nothings elsewhere).

On 8/24/2024 at 6:02 PM, StrasburgUmp80136 said:

We are located in Colorado, about 20 miles east of Denver, in a town called Strasburg.

I just looked at a map, and apparently I just drove through there last month - I drove I-70 to Denver for work.

On 8/24/2024 at 4:51 PM, The Man in Blue said:

If somebody asks you how long you have been doing this, do not start your reply with "Counting this game?"

Dang. I'm going to have to start using this now.

1 hour ago, wolfe_man said:

The only con I see from it is the appearance.  I still don't like the looks of it, but I'll trade protection for appearance when talking about my brain and the affects concussions can involve.

My sentiments exactly. I wear an F3 mask with the Skully - best protection money can buy from what I can tell. I took a foul ball of the top of my mask a few days ago that I'm sure would have completely rocked me without the Skully. I just grabbed a new ball from my bag and handed it to the catcher. Play on!

I do think it is a little hotter than a regular cap, but as others have mentioned, that doesn't mean as much sweat dripping down your face, since it has the built-in sweatband. Oh, and the other downside is that if you are out in blistering heat, it can take a couple of days for that sweatband to dry out. If you're working plates on back-to-back days, sometimes it will still feel a little damp on the second day.

I'm not going back. YMMV.

Not a book, but if you're a visual learner, Take a look at ump-app.com - very comprehensive and well researched and produced.

On 8/2/2024 at 7:24 PM, dumbdumb said:

whatever happened to making the team creating a violation, not gaining an advantage from that violation.

another win for letting the offense off the hook and penalizing the defense. making rules advantageous for the offense rather than the defense. (oops i forgot about the left hander stepping towards home rather than directly to first).

personally, if the offensive team had a slower player on the bases than the batter, that slower player should be told to do the same thing that happened on this play, so the faster batter got on base, and now we had the fastest 2 out of 3 runners on base, and only 1 or 2 outs, rather than 2 or 3 and an inning ender.

it will be great to score 2 runs on a gapper rather than maybe only 1 run if we now have two road runners on the bases rather than the original hokey pokey due to that rule change.

You're assuming that a runner would keep the team in mind over his own personal ego. Not completely unheard of in MLB, but certainly rare.

And if they're that smart, and also selfless... Cool, let them do that. Are you going to tell your speedster to try to hit an IFF so you can trade an out for speedier runners? Let's face it - the IFF/INT situation is even more rare than the selfless MLB player, and this would just help avoid arguments and ejections in these cases.

On 8/2/2024 at 1:49 PM, MadMax said:

em mine.

Obviously (or should be for this forum, anyway).

Were I in a position to make an MLB rules change (and obviously I am not), I would change this rule so that on an infield fly, any interference supersedes the infield fly.

You would end up with the runner out (like they are now), a dead ball, and the B/R on first base. It takes away the argument that the defense is getting a double-play when none was otherwise possible, and it still provides incentive not to interfere (because you don't want to keep running the bases yourself.

Inadvertent? Doesn't matter to the team (they still have the same number of runners on base), even though the runner might be mad.

On 7/27/2024 at 11:32 AM, The Man in Blue said:

Our state patch is rectangular.  Wonder why they only have circular ones?

It sill works with other shapes - I just spent this weekend working American Legion with their ginormous rounded-corner rectangular patch using the patchlatch. That area is the only area that it adheres, but unless your patches are made of paper, they'll stay flat if you store them anywhere near properly.

On 7/23/2024 at 4:01 PM, MadMax said:

then using magnets or Velcro to attach them

patchlatch.com, my friend

On 4/15/2024 at 7:41 AM, spiffdawg7 said:

That is the one flaw of the Mizuno's in my opinion.  They get gashed really easy, i've had it happen to two pairs already.  

A buddy of mine fixed his with flex seal and I am going to try it in the near future.  

This spring catchers managed to get both of my plate shoes of my "dirt set" (I have plate shoes that are for turf only, and my others for dirt). I've left them gashed for a couple of months and bookmarked this discussion. I'm working post-season on a dirt field next weekend, so thought it was time to make them look good.

I bought some black "Flex Seal Max" spray, taped off the mesh parts (and the tarsal plate, soles, etc. - everything I didn't want sprayed) and gave them a spray to see how it would work.

Holy crap, these things are gorgeous and with a minimal amount of effort. I wish I had taken a "before" pic so you could see the difference and how horrible they looked before.

I'm going to give one more coat on my left shoe (right side of the photo) as the worst of the gouges still has a small spot.

Thanks, @spiffdawg7 for the tip - I never would have thought of this.

Bringing this back away from politics and onto baseball...

https://www.kwch.com/2024/07/12/longtime-mlb-umpire-holcomb-native-todd-tichenor-sharing-dream-with-son/

I've worked with Kaden. My first comment to him after him introducing himself was "Considering your name and where you're from, I'm guessing you have a hell of a mentor." He's a good kid, and I wish him the best.

On 7/13/2024 at 12:05 AM, grayhawk said:

Or, read your PARTNER. Something most folks that don't work much 3-man are not used to doing.

Yes - I was referring to balls in my coverage area. For balls in your partner's coverage area, you're absolutely correct.

I was fairly-well experienced in the 3-umpire system when I realized that you don't watch the ball. You read the fielder. It's still not automatic for me (probably ~10% of my games are 3-man), but I'm getting better.

(And after this weekend the rest of my schedule is post-season, which means all 3-man)

A few years ago, I was working a HS JV game. Blooper hit to shallow center field. F8 is running up fast to get a one-hop on it, and the ball took a horrible bounce and hit him square in the nether-region. He dropped an f-bomb loud enough I'm sure everyone in the stands could hear. I told his coach "I should probably say something about the language, but I might say something similar if it happened to me." He responded that he wasn't going to say anything about the language, but that he'd tell him to try to keep the volume down.

28 minutes ago, Velho said:

I think we can all agree PU should carry an indicator but ideally never look at it. To that end, what are the ways folks do that?

I ended up doing what I do when I'm on the bases with no indicator. Between pitches, I would touch my thumb to the corresponding finger (index = 1, middle = 2, ring = 3, left hand for balls, right for strikes).

I had a scoreboard operator that was pretty accurate, and it was nice having that as a backup. LIke I do normally, if the board was off, I announced the count each pitch both with my fingers and by voice. Typically I give the count each pitch only visually and only verbalize if asked.

On 6/19/2024 at 2:09 AM, MadMax said:

I don’t use an indicator. I haven’t since 2014.

I tried this last week....accidentally. I was jawing with my partner before the game, got onto the field and realized I didn't put it in my pocket.

I made it through the game without losing the count, but it just added a level of stress to my game that didn't need to be there. Obviously, YMMV

On 6/21/2024 at 10:35 AM, 834k3r said:

Same. I've hardly looked at my indicator during a game since I moved to the AS. Added benefit is it won't break, and you can take it apart for periodic maintenance and/or lubrication (just don't use graphite--as me how I know).

I will say the only downside is the glare from the sun off the metal. I've taken a wire brush to mine (it's helped) and it's still pretty bright when working a sunny game.

I took it apart, wire-brushed it, AND spray painted it with a black matte spray paint. Most of the black has worn off, but the remnants of the paint along with the wire-brush has made it quite usable in bright lights.

One of these days I'm going to follow through on my threat to made a 3D-printable replacement front cover for it.

I'm actually on my 2nd one - the internal metal piece on one of the dials broke. I took my old cover and put it on the new indicator to keep the reflections away. Like others have said, even if you don't look at it much, the reflections can sure surprise you if you're careless about it.

Posted twice

On 6/19/2024 at 1:09 PM, The Man in Blue said:

For those “in the know” … it is an indi-clicker.

*Ahem* - that's indi-clicki-counter

1 hour ago, The Short Umpire said:

This just makes me grateful for how awesome my wife is. For one, my wife doesn’t buy a ton of makeup. But for two she’s never once questioned a gear purchase.

Same. But with the caveat that since my initial purchases when first getting started, my umpiring money goes into a separate account not covered by our normal budgeting. Any purchases need to come from THAT account. (And FWIW, what's left in that account typically goes towards vacations and other niceties that are above and beyond the budget, so she's typically the beneficiary of the extra. It helps remind me WHY I keep doing this.)

Many times I have been tempted to say "Do you want to know what's wrong with youth sports? Find a mirror."