ErichKeane

I DEFINITELY agree that for a good umpire, bases are the same amount of work/paying attention. However, it is ALSO clear to me that (like wolfe_man alluded to) you can get away with 'phoning it in' on the bases and few will notice. When you've got a good plate guy, you barely have to move! I had one last weekend where the base guy would NOT get inside from A until the runner was already past him. He 'fast walked' in from A, but stayed there until the runner was more than ~1/3 the way to 2nd. Fortunately the 1st and 2nd time I saw it there was not a play at 2nd, but I found myself having to sneak up to be there to make the calls. I tried asking him about it between innings, and he just walked away, so *shrug*. While inside, he would do B/C correctly, but also didn't move at all.

I like splitting, but definitely don't mind plates. I find its mostly older guys who are trying to plate-dodge though. I think the bases is an 'easy paycheck' for a lot of them, and they see it as much less work. When _I_ do it, it is more work on the bases Your point about equipment is great! When I had my last plate shoes, doing more than 2 in a day behind the plate was painful. My new shoes (Mizunos) are so comfy, I could do all 6 in a day back there (and have!), with no problems.

I'm not sure what you mean about 'rule about avoiding collisions'. All there is, is Obstruction, Interference, and Malicious Contact. "No Call" is NOT the correct call here, the F5 was in the runner's way without possession of the ball, so that is obstruction. Ball is dead, runner awarded at least 2B. That said, if the runner made it in safe, and I've called time to get a fielder's shoulder helped-with, I'm probably not going to make a big deal about the award, and just let the sleeping dog lie here. As far as encouraging collisions: That is where malicious contact comes in. If a runner makes contact with malice (rules are intentionally vague here, as you might realize) or with the sole intent to get a call, and I can tell, he's getting called out on Malicious Contact and perhaps ejected. If I SNIFF at that being the coach's encouragement, he's getting tossed as well, and my ejection report will not be kind to him. I've had ONE MC call in a year and a half of calling. It was a clear obstruction during a rundown, but the runner decided to make the obstruction hurt the fielder. He was called out and tossed, his dad (who cheered it on) was tossed, and his coach was read the riot act. That crap has no business on a baseball field.

I've seen a few coaches do that too, but they seem to encourage the kids (12U, sometimes 14U) to do it EVEN when 1st base is occupied. I always enjoy seeing them realize why that is a BAD idea, when a smart defense turns a double play off of it.

I actually had a similar situation in a 10U tourney a few weekends ago! 2-2 count, ball in the dirt, batter runs to 1st. Catcher jumps up to throw and I just say "Ball 3" more loudly than usual, and he gets the hint. As far as "What was that last pitch", I get it, but only on steals/quick plays right after. Seems everyone gets distracted by the action and stops listening to me

That sounds like heaven...

I always do my solo games behind the plate. Its a lot of work (as others have said), and I likely miss calls in the field, but I tend to get many/most of them. I tried behind the mound once, and found that fair/foul was kind of impossible, and the strike zone was much worse as a side effect. That said, I have only done solo up to 14U. The only problem I have, is at 9U/10U, the coaches don't tend to understand that missed-calls come with the territory.

Eh? thats really strange! I've not heard of that. It seems counter to the intent of the pitch-limit rule...

In our local leagues, it is a forfeit to go 1 pitch over the pitch limit (though, you're allowed to finish the batter where you hit your limit). I KNOW every coach who would notice would call time on the 1st after, so the 'safety' thing is a little overblown: its 1 pitch over. That said, if we HAD to make the kid face 1 batter: he can do so without throwing a pitch. Just intentionally walk him, and you've faced a batter without throwing a pitch.

I got the email about those Ended up costing me $200, because it is what put me over the edge on the new F3 mask, as mine is getting pretty worn.

Based on the criteria from the case play, you don't actually need the pitcher to make a pitch to be replacable though: "The substitute pitcher must pitch until the batter then at bat, or any substitute for that batter, is put out or reaches first base, or until a third out has been made." From what I can see, there is at least 1 (2 if there are runners on!) way to meet that requirement without throwing a pitch!

Here's a link to the post you're talking about:

This is a reasonably acceptable article for you: https://www.umpirebible.com/index.php/rules-base-running/basepath-running-lane PLEASE make sure you read and understand it completely before asking the same poorly formed questions over and over, its not likely to result in helping you. The base path is a straight line, established when the tag is attempted. He may not leave 3 feet from that line while the tag is still being attempted. Once the tag is stopped being attempted (such as the fielder throwing the ball!), the base path disappears, and he can run to center field if he wants. Note that at any point, he may decide to switch WHICH of the 2 bases he is attempting, and has 3 feet from THAT line as well. THIS is where it gets a bit hairy for me, as I don't have a reference for you. But from MY interpretation, the basepath gets re-established when he changes which base he is attempting. That is: if the runner has continued along the basepath during a tag attempt, and changes his mind at one point, he does NOT have to return to the initial 'point' (apex/etc), he can run straight to the base.

I've called this down to 10U (in a tourney), but it is of course an umpire's judgement call based on hindrance. It is usually pretty obvious if you're looking at it whether the fielder was hindered by the runner running in front (that is, is charging normally, then abruptly pulls up as the runner goes in front). The "line" for me is either "the fielder pretty clearly wanted to be where the runner is running". But again, the body language is pretty clear for me when i see it.

At a certain point, you have to have a sit-down with your assigner and explain your concerns. You don't have to name-names, but you should see what he has to say. If his response isn't sufficient, perhaps find a different organization. Else, he might just tell you to mark certain partners as "don't work with" in whatever software you guys are using. You do have to judge at one point whether the org is too rotten to continue working with however...

This is a absolutely a "had to be there". IT is a judgement call: Did the runner's actions "hinder" the fielder? If so, it is interference, and you award 1 or 2 outs as necessary to nullify the interference. But your "it was not clear whether...." sentence means you've already made that decision.

That was basically Lindsey's point. If it was a ball 4, the play should have stood. If it was a strike-3, it would nullify the strike, and send the runner to 2B. I'm guessing what it REALLY was, was a "brain fart", not thinking through the Ball-4 outcome in the moment.

I realize that the 'Guest' accounts have sometimes given valuable discussion here, but it seems that over the last ~month and a half, we are getting a lot of low-effort versions of the same questions over and over, trying to ask the same question in multiple ways. I can't help but think this is some sort of AI-training attempt, but is resulting in some pretty frustrated long-time members; Is the value provided by the guest-accounts still sufficient to allow them? I realize I'm pretty new here at only ~1 year, so perhaps I'm missing some value that others see. @Thunderheads: WDYT?

I tend to agree. I started using a distinct timer (on my watch), when I had an argument over the end time in a game. We all 'knew' the end time and had said the 'start' time at the beginning, but I had both coaches in my face with their phones showing a minute off(Seemingly ATT & Verizon are 45 seconds apart!) trying to fight for/fight against playing another inning. In the end I went with the time given by the home-book (since I didn't have a phone/watch with me), and we played another inning. There ended up being a big poop-storm of complains up and down about how I cheated the visiting/winning team out of pitch-count (they would win either way, but now they had to burn a pitcher for an inning). The league response was, "we don't do protests in this league, take it up with your umpires at the games". After that, in order to avoid ever having a problem again, I visibly show a stop-watch being started and tell them my watch is official, no ifs/ands/butts, and an inning starts the instant the 3rd out happens. Seemingly in the tournaments in games i didn't work, others had similar problems, so the TD is giving us timers, since some umps were against keeping time themselves (and were just trusting 'home book').

You're 100% right here. I hate working tourney games solo... Local league games, no matter how competitive, 95% of coaches/parents are just glad to see their kid play, and realize you are going to call what you can see. At the end, the kids have fun, and their parents are thrilled their kid had a good time. Tourney ball is the opposite, particularly as they are younger. Seemingly paying $50/kid for the weekend makes them feel entitled to get on every single call. It reminds me actually of two of the plays/situations in the first game which made me grumpy, perhaps what started the weekend off bad. I barely remembered it until just this moment, because of how awful the rest went. 1st one was bases loaded, grounder to F5 playing in. I stepped up the line a little, since these kids are a little unpredictable, but making sure I still have tag/force at the plate,but can also see 1B, 2B, and 3B). F5 picks the ball up, turns around, and lunges for a tag behind them, so I'm completely screened by the player. R2 doesn't take a step out of straight away, and his jersey doesn't seem to move, and there is no reaction to the tag. From what I can see and intuit based on where they are positioned, I'm about 90% sure the tag was missed. It would have been a HECK of a reach to make the tag. SO, I call safe. Of course, the whole dugout/fans give me the whole, "How could you miss that, he clearly tagged the runner!" Not long after, R2, 2 outs (I think?). 1B side dugout at the plate. Grounder to F5, and R2 is off on contact, so they are coming together pretty quick. I'm 95% sure I'm going to have a tag play, and having been burned before, move up the 3BL to try to get SOME angle on that, without ruining my play at 1B. OF COURSE, F5 pops right up and fires to 1B. I have a banger, call it out. 1BC is furious I missed the 'pulled foot', as is, of course, the dugout and the entire sideline. There wasn't even much of a stretch by F3 on the play, so I'm almost positive there was no pulled foot because of the throw, but who knows, ya know? From my angle, the feet were where they were supposed to be. On both of those plays, it was just demoralizing. Either I botched them with no real ability to do better (I was in a position that made sense at the time with both) and fans/coaches weren't understanding, or teams/coaches were trying to scam me. Either way, it just makes me kind of hate the job/game sometimes. I guess just a bad weekend,eh?

Thanks for the feedback! I definitely got brisker as the weekend went on. I was a bit on 'tilt' as the constant complaining/chirping, and I have often found polite requests don't do me any favors. I'm usually a pretty non-confrontational/friendly guy, and stay that way through games when I get it back, but I DO fear I over-compensate when it is getting taken advantage of. I also tend to 'stay nice'/let things go far longer than I probably should... This is one of the reasons I appreciate a partner (even a junior one!), just having someone to vent/discuss this stuff with between innings helps put me in the right headspace I think. Fortunately/unfortunately, I don't get much practice with these sorts of teams, of the ~130 games I've done this year and last, this weekend's games are a majority of the times I've run into this. So I doubled my experience

I DEFINITELY always did/do that when I can see that. It is easy to do when the watch is on my wrist, I can check pretty easily. BUT walking to the backstop to look at a small timer means instead of checking it every other pitch, I see it ever few plays. That said, wouldn't have helped here We hit our time-limit shortly after the inning ended! I think the timers are BETTER for most of the umps that were counting on doing math on their phone times, but much worse for me, who was doing it on a wrist stop-watch. >>When you are in the bottom half of the inning and the home team is behind (because why else are you playing?), you still use the above mechanic. You might still be playing the bottom of the inning with the home-team losing before the time limit has ended, since if the 3rd out happens before the clock expiration, the away-team gets another crack at bat. As far as "its the umps call!", the timer on the fence removes that authority, at least effectively.

I usually don't mind it too much, though it is usually too loud, which I tend to suck up. I've not had any profane songs, but I will keep an ear out! Thats terrible!

That would be nice! Rules for the tournament are 'if there is ANY time left on the 'no new inning after' clock when the 3rd out is recorded', we play another inning. In the past, I've used a stopwatch on my cheap watch, and been able to 'cheat' a little to steal a little time if I needed. However, this year they gave us timers to put on the fence which beep and everyone knows the rule that I was stepping on time.

Sunday: Starting at 8am this time, 1st 2 are 9U, same division, but the 'playoff' and championship game. 1st game is not bad, with a handful of rumblings, but 1 interesting play. 1st big rumbling is an assistant coach who was grumpy about something that came to me and complained, I explained curtly and ordered him back to the bench. I talked to the actual coach and told him to make it clear that only HE, as the head coach, was allowed to approach me for stuff like that, and I should have ejected his coach. He thanked me for not doing so, and made I heard him making it CLEAR to his coaches what I said, so I considered that handled. However, the interesting play. Only runner somehow gets caught between 2nd and 1st (I don't recall how, perhaps a 'caught stealing?'), and gets into a pickle. It goes on a LONG time, perhaps 20+ throws. However, the runner has a REALLY interesting way of turning. Each time the ball is thrown, she is taking a fairly wide turn 'inside'. However, she goes back to straight line to the base, so I have no basepath violations(and surprisingly no obstruction!). Fans of course are screaming about the baseline. Because of the short distance between throws (and bases!), by the time the ball gets thrown away, she is most of the way to the mound! She gets back to 1B, and the fans are still yelling. I go again to the same coach from before and tell him to control his sideline, and (perhaps out of line, but I was frustrated by this point) that 'their misunderstanding of the basepath rule is their problem, not mine'. He once again does so, which I'm grateful for. Rest of the game goes smoothly, and due to time, but RIGHT after the timer, so we have a break. The team from the above 2 wins, so they are sticking around for the next game. Troublesome team from Saturday lost on the other field, so I don't need to see them again, though the SD tells me they were really apologetic with how everything went down the day before. Because of the time between games, the coaches from the troublesome team come over to me and start asking questions. I end up basically running a rules clinic, with Obstruction, Basepath (they were flabbergasted about the 'skunk in the outfield' rules!), and a few others. They were all really receptive, and seemed like they all learned quite a bit! Championship game went fine though, which was nice. I did 10U no-leadoff division for my 3rd game, and I don't remember really any problems. Last 2 were 10U leadoff division, once again, a play-in game, followed by a championship. I don't recall much about the play-in game, other than one of the teams kept doing 'walk up announcements'/music. I explained to the operator a few times that I didnt mind it, but I NEEDED it off before the batter was in the box. She was receptive to it, and for the most part, did a half-decent job, but I did have to remind her of my rule 2 more times during the game. I only had to hold up the pitcher for it to stop (and did a 'cut it' sign) a handful of times, and just did my warnings between innings. Their team ended up winning, and going to the championship. Championship was bear. 1st, I let the coaches talk me into doing 'balk warnings', which I hate, but it lets me be more of a stickler for younger ages, which I think helps out. One thing I DID say is that I'd enforce particularly egregious ones, particularly if they 'affected the play significantly', and only 1 of each kind to each pitcher, as I wasn't going to repeat myself. I gave examples like, feinting, or double lifting the leg on a move to a base/etc. I gave a few warnings on ticky-tack things I probably wouldn't have even picked out in 10U. However, at one point, I had a R3, and the pitcher stepped onto the rubber with his hands together in the 'set' before breaking to go to the stretch. I called time and told him to step off, and explained he cannot do that. Running-team coach starts yelling at me, "you have to call a balk, you said if it affected the game, you'd call balks! And this would score a run! You're costing me a run!". I tried to explain what I said, and said, 'you agreed to this in the plate meeting!', but he was stuck in a loop, so I just said, "Enough, decision is final." and he clammed up. But, back to the ejection I was STILL having trouble with the speaker. In 1 inning, I had to hold up play about 6 times for it, so I went back to the operator, who told me that she wasn't running it anymore. Another woman said, 'Someone else is running it, but I'll make sure they know and it won't happen again'. I thanked her, and went back. The next inning, I had 3 more issues with it, so I went to her and asked her to make sure it didn't happen again. She said, "I'm doing it, I've been doing it all year and I've never had a problem, I'm following your stupid rule, I've never had a problem before with this". I said, "Well, you have a problem today, this is the last warning". OF COURSE, next time her players are at bat, 3rd batter is in his position, bat on shoulder, eyes up and the music is STILL going. I call time, turn to the dugout and say, "The speaker is out of here, its done.". I got a few 'what does that mean?' from the bench, so I said, "its off for the rest of the game, I will not hear it again.". Of course the HC comes down from 3BC and starts going, "what is going on?!" The 2nd woman on the sideline said something like, "I told you he had something up his ass about the music!". In retrospect, I was distracted, but shoulda tossed on that, but *shrug*. I explained to the coach that the music kept encroaching on play, and that I'd warned the operator a half-dozen times, and that I'd had enough. He said, "Well, thats my wife! If you have a problem with her, you've got a problem with me! You can expect a complaint to the tournament about this!" I said, "Oh, please do." He said, "We're just here to play baseball, not to deal with your made up rules about music! Lets just play ball! Lets play baseball!". Again, I let that go on longer than I should have 😕 I told him to go back to his position, and we continued the game. Not much more happened, there was 1 controversial play at HP where his runner got caught on a bang-bang play at the plate, but I explained what I saw, and he was fine. Game ended in a bit with no further problems. On the way off the field I did get a side-comment from the coaches wife of, "I've never met an umpire who hated music before!", but I ignored it and went to my truck and spent the evening with my wife and kid. I look back now, and realize: Just about every rumbling that happened this weekend was benches/sidelines not understanding rules. I find I rarely get these situations in higher divisions, but REALLY frequently at lower divisions. Have i mentioned I hate 10U! I am definitely beginning to understand why umps are leaving over this crap.