Thanks for all the advice. Ever since we knew we were going to do this, I have been focusing on the umpires during my son's HS games. It's amazing how many things they are doing that I never noticed before. I would love to sit in on a pre-game...not sure how that would go over if my son was about to be catching in front of them. We are in Texas and I noticed years ago when attending the local AA games, the umpires hustle, run and are 10X more deliberate than the MLB guys...so that was good advice. I just need the opportunity to watch them again now that I am trying to learn.
So I would say Saturday went as good as I could have ever hoped. Son said he wanted the plate and was fine doing plate meeting, so on the drive over we went over the league specific rules for the age group, talked about our hand signals to each other....etc. He worked back there for a 1.5 hour game...and not one groan from the crowd or coaches the entire time that I heard. He looked really good and in control I thought.
I had a couple of issues. Felt really uncomfortable in C. Couldn't get to where I felt like I wasn't in the way and in a position to see everything at 2B and 3B. Ended up moving back and forth, from one side of the shortstop to the other....probably not really even ending up in C. The other thing I did was I wasn't vocal enough. Had a ball where the throw pulled the first baseman off the bag, but I was about 95% sure he tagged the runner, but i certainly couldn't see it. Looked home for a second and my son nodded, so I called him out with just my fist. Coach asked "Are you sure?". I said, "pretty sure he tagged him coach". Definitely will learn a lesson about vocalizing what I see on a close play, not saying "pretty sure" and learn to let them ask me to get help if they think I need it.
