SH0102

I do not know what age this ballgame was, and I doubt the umpire was very experienced. I wish we could get a message to ALL new/young umpires...it is okay, expected, and even acceptable to make mistakes. But do NOT attempt to justify the mistakes with rules that do not exist. My son is 14 and has already umpired college fall ball games, including D1, but he most definitely does not know a lot of the rule book. I told him, if you kick a call, or misapply a rule, then just own it, learn from it, and move on. But do NOT try to justify something you are not 100% sure about. Even if it means just saying "this is what I have, if I messed up, I apologize and will look it up later, but we are sticking with it" (he usually works solo games, doesnt have partners to ask). If it is that big of a deal, that is what protests are for, but let's move along. But don't quote a rule that does not exist

So the only book I have in my car is my NCAA one, but Rule 1 - 16 - a states "all personnel from BOTH teams must be in their team's dugout or bullpen and remain there until the ball is declared dead or the side has been retired. This excludes the batter, on-deck batter, base runners, base coaches, and the 9 defensive players" ** Emphasis on "both" was added by me ** ** While this rule is from the NCAA book, I guarantee a similar/exact rule is stated in Fed/HS as well **

Welcome Mr. SBLL, First, it always helps to state what rule set you are asking your question for (HS/FED, NCAA, OBR). That said, and I don't have the book right in front of me, there are rules about who is allowed on the playing field (this is anything dubbed "in play"). On offense, it is the batter, on-deck batter, any runners on base, and the base coaches. On defense, it is the 9 fielders. Now, if you are talking about young kids (5 - 10 years old rec), having a coach directing/coaching/teaching is no big deal. Once the kids are older, there is zero reason a defensive coach should be on the field in play while his team is in the field except for the purpose of making a pitching change or holding a defensive conference. I will go to my car and get my rule books, but I am sure someone else will have the rules before I even get back

Definitely a FYC right there, if I am Phillips, I’m not swinging at any pitches that at-bat. Never seen a mid-pitch before either!

Personally I think runs shouldn’t count bc two people missed a base on the same play, just by principle alone (unless we are talking about 8 year olds or something) Also, while the above is correct, it basically can’t happen, bc the appeal on BR must occur before batter gets back to the bag (assuming he overran it). If you appeal to second first, there’s no way the BR isn’t back on first by the time you appeal there too

There are a couple of resident softball eficianados on this site, so hopefully one of them will be along soon, but I have never seen a baseball or softball game where a batter being thrown out at first for the third out resulted in a run. While some leagues do adopt local rules, I also can not imagine a 10U level association adopting any sort of complicated provision allowing this, talk about a nightmare for the umpire (I am assuming he/she is solo at that age)

And if you want the rulebook version, you can not appeal judgment, but can appeal “missed” things. Calling a strike is judgment, so is calling ball. Calling swing “yes he did” is judgment. Missing that he swung bc focused on tracking pitch is not judgment , it’s missing something

It was answered about 37 times, but I’ll got #38. The premise is that an umpire at the plate primarily is watching the pitch, not the swing. The base umpires job is to watch swings, did ball hit the dirt, hit the batter, was a foul ball caught by catcher or did it hit dirt, etc. So when a plate umpire is unsure, bc they were focused on pitch, they ask for help. When a PU calls a swing, they are wrong almost never bc it’s fairly obvious they went when they can determine a swing when that isn’t even their focus. All my games as BU, I can not recall a single time that a PU said “yes he did” where I was like “damn, that was a bad call”. It would be a colossal waste of time to let batters check on every called swing, maybe 1 in 1000 would be overturned

Thanks Maven, that’s what I thought too. Had a game (Hs kids) where this happened and BU called balk when he lifted bc it looked like he was pitching, and hadn’t come set. Ironically no one argued, and def coach even said “you have to pause”, and I said in postgame I didn’t think it was a balk unless he pitched

Please help settle friendly debate had with a fellow umpire: With R1, can a LHP use the pickoff move where they lift stride leg and step and throw to first without having first come set? ie, pitcher bends down, takes sign, starts to come set by standing, and while coming set, but before getting set, lift front leg up and then steps and throws to first. Balk or nothing since he didn’t pitch it? Edit: I assumed the answer is same in all codes but if differs, please share. Thanks!

And to clarify, I never said I’d call RLI just for being outside the lane, but I said if catcher hitches due to that, you can get it. catcher fields, turns, and double clutches bc runner is in the way (out of RL) you can call it in HS.

That was Gil from close call sports

Technically in HS, any level of INT would render it called…if catcher hesitated bc runner was in fair ground, you can get it, but you’re right, I wasn’t specific, a clean field, release, and catch, would not render it called

In OBR, RLI is only called when the runner interferes with fielder who is fielding/catching a throw that could reasonably retire them. HS that’s called and runners return. But on a clean catch and out, no chance that is called at pro level

Interesting question and topic. one part of me wants to say that I hate the old “no one can ever tell me I’m wrong” mentality and another part of me understands that just flat saying to someone they aren’t doing well doesn’t usually lend to positive outcomes. I might do an in-between innings visit and “hope” he asks me “what did you think about that ball 4?” (or whatever pitches) and then can say something positive-negative like “if we were doing a CWS game, I’d want you on the plate bc you are spot on, but for this league, I’d call anything close”. If he doesn’t ask, well then, it’s his zone to handle, and hope you brought water as it’s gonna be a long day.

I agree with Maven but think Mike’s info is a good way for a young/new umpire to learn INT/OBS and why a situation like the one in the OP wouldn’t be INT. for me, it helps to understand the why tomake the rule “stick” . If the OP is asking the question, they don’t know the rule yet or understand it, so thinking of it as Mike described helps learn it, but I agree that I wouldn’t promote using that as your point of emphasis with a coach.

You said the SS ran into SS, guessing you meant runner. But no, this is obstruction if he’s going after a throw and not a batted ball unless the runner does something intentional

Stepping off means it can never be a pitch, ever, so wipe out all of your question about ball/strike. As soon as pitcher disengaged, he became an infielder. Therr is a rule that you can not throw to an unoccupied base except to make a Play or drive back an advancing runner. In your case, if they were running home, throwing to catcher is perfectly legal, and theoretically, it “should” be a quality throw, ergo it would be near the strike zone. There also is a rule that a batter may not swing at a throw home (note word throw, not pitch) or he would be guilty of interference. That said, if batters hear runner coming and pitcher clearly steps off, I think even a HS kid knows to get out of the way. A step off (disengagement) must be a distinct movement off the rubber, if the pitcher does some savvy thing to make it look like he’s pitching to induce a swing, he has committed a balk

No. For two reasons…even if it was appealable (it’s not), once a pitch is delivered, they lose their right to appeal an infraction that occurred prior to that pitch. second, there is no penalty for not returning to base. Technically an umpire should not have put the ball into Play until he did, but there is no rule basis for getting an out for that

I like the post about not sweating what others think. Most people grasp and accept that every close play on the bases will be viewed as “wrong” by half the people in attendance (whichever side it went against) Strikes are the same way…a pitch that’s close is going to upset defense team/fans if you call it a ball and the offense team/fans if you call it a strike. the only calls that no one will ever question are the belt high middle of plate pitch and when people are out by 2+ steps on a force. You know more about rules and zone (should anyways) for a reason, so just call your best game and leave happy.

Very easy things to remember, time between innings is for pitcher, and time between pitches is for batter. I had a game this summer where 1B took his sweet time and I told pitcher 2-more and catcher said, “but the infield didn’t get to warm up yet”. Don’t care, let’s go. If batter is ready and pitcher can come set and pitch, then runner is irrelevant

They can retouch home and return so long as no following runner has scored after them

Fair question…best answer is either what noumpere said, or the fact that there is no established time a pitcher must pause, it must just be discernible. Did you see him pause? It so, play on. I watched it about 10 times and I see the most minutea’ of a pause, and as noumpere said, mlb is different. It has to be no doubt there was absolutely no pause for them to call it.