MichaelG

Thanks for all the advice. The highest level of ball I would plan to call would be High School Varsity at least for the foreseeable future. I umpire more to stay engaged with the game and don't intend to go beyond local youth tournaments and HS ball given my other work and family (I still have kids playing) obligations.

I am ready to upgrade my chest protector to a hard shell. My old chest protector is a Pro 9 (soft shell with some imbedded plates). The harness is shot and instead of working through finding a harness that will make it fit properly I am considering upgrading. I have been reading a lot of the fitting advice that talks about what works for larger folks. However, I would like some thoughts on getting something that would fit me. For reference I am 5'7" and weigh 153lb. Anyone have some options that will give me good protection and most importantly will fit well.

Little league is 9 players for majors and up. For minors and below (which could be you 10's perhaps) the local league has an option of 10 players. It is not commonly used and the local league needs to pass a ground rule to use it.

So I had this happen. At this level, when everyone thinks there are three outs and you have 2 assuming there is no play happening I would call time. It ends the abandonment vs. scoring after folks left the field stuff as you killed it. Note I would never call time if the OC or R3 was remotely aware of what was happening and trying to score, or if the defense was trying to make a play on the runner as they were abandoning. PS: I am a long time lurker on this board and first time poster.