ErichKeane

This is 'out on appeal', right? So if this was 3rd out, runs could score, and accidental tagging of 1B by F3 isn't an out?

Yeah, seems like there is no middle ground. Either it is a long-term trauma that the kid will spend years in therapy about, or they spoil their kid rotten on the field.

Well, my first ejection promised to sue me and the tournament company for defamation, then threatened to 'ruin' the site director. 3 hours of having to watch his team from 1/2 mile away (kicked out of even the parking lot!) was begging to come back in and apologize to me! Site director told him he was done for the weekend, but would pass on his apology. He lost his mind when I wouldn't call strikes with his catcher setup with the glove in the opposite batters box (from his perspective on the side, he didn't see out/in), and I tossed him after letting him go way too long. SD kicked him for the weekend. I haven't seen him since, but apparently others are telling the story (and the game of telephone is making it bigger each month I hear about it again!).

It took me a horrifyingly long time to toss my first coach. I'm still not wonderful about controlling coaches, but I'm getting way better. I only did a little more than 100 games last year, but I believe I'm way better than I was!

The worst of these I get is with one of my home-town teams in the 12U "bottom" division, where my town's team is quite bad. Wonderful kids having a blast, but not throwing many strikes, not catching/fielding at all, and most of the kids are afraid of the pitches. They get run-ruled in just about every game. I believe in about 15 games I umpired for this team, they got a grand-total of <5 outs (no strikeouts, 1-2 popouts, and perhaps a soft grounder or two to F3 and a slow batter). We DO have a 5 runs/inning rule (except in the last inning!), plus a mercy rule, plus a no-new-inning after 1:45 rule. I know in advance that these aren't going to be close games, so the zone is typically pretty generous anyway. One thing I DO however is "forget" to call last inning in the 4th (when mercy rule comes into effect). That way the visitors are still limited to 5 runs, so we can actually finish the game. I typically note what I've done/will-do with the visiting coach, who typically thanks me

That is Max Scherzer's alt account

I'm glad they fixed this bit, but the fact that they are doing it this soon before the season (rather than anything like this coming up while this was play tested in the minors!) is disturbing. On a completely unrelated note @Lindsay: I was sure for about 1/2 the video you were wearing a Mighty Ducks jersey from the movie era 🦆🦆

You're absolutely right, I didn't 'manage', though I kept the game from taking TOO long... Probably two innings of telling nearly every batter 1-2x before they "got it" until the ~6th when he started out again. I let it go a LONG time and don't think I ever "shut it down". In my defense, it was about my 4th game behind the plate at all, so I was a bit timid. Now ~75+ games back there, I would shut it down way quicker. 3rd batter would have gotten a called strike.

Fortunately I'm NFHS and OBR, so I don't have to deal with that. Even so, guidance typically is to pretend the catcher's box isn't really a thing.

That setup is my #1 pet peeve. Nothing gets a coach hot under the collar like thinking you're missing a bunch of down-the-middle pitches, that he can't tell his catcher is a foot outside. Ends up creating a pretty obnoxious interaction with him as the game goes on, and probably even means I have to toss him. One of my annoyances with the 'catcher-out-of-the-catchers-box' balk guidance (I've heard it elsewhere, but the "Umpire Classroom" NFHS guy just repeated it in a video, which is to forget that rule exists) that I've seen is that we're not supposed to use it in cases like this. It would stop REAL quick if I could balk on the catcher being half into the batters box.

I had a similar problem in a game (didn't walk down the line, but gave a 5 digit number that took AGES for the batter to figure out) that was getting worse as the game went on last spring. I managed it most of the game by telling the batter to get into the box if it took more than a few seconds, and they listened. Coach gave up on the numbers for most of the game. He started back up at the end of the game, and I told the coach that I'd have to start calling strikes if his players didn't get in the box. He 'dared' me to do it. Unfortunately I was a green-Blue at the time (hah!) and wasn't confident enough in my knowledge of the exceptions in NFHS 7-3-1 to call it, so I didn't for the next 1/2 inning, after which we ended the game due to darkness. I've since made myself VERY familiar with that rule, and hope I end up getting that coach again this spring.

Yeah, that is exactly why I think the only restriction on the catcher is that they be in the catcher's box.

ONE Big thing to note here: Umpires have different preferences for their indicators, and those who use them are generally going to be doing them by muscle memory, so you need to make sure that they match what they are used to. 3 vs 4 dial, 3 ball vs 4 ball, Strike/Ball vs Ball/Strike, etc. Else, they are going to be inaccurate or never used. SO EITHER you have to expect every field to have a vast variety of preferences, you need umpires to purchase their own indicator for this. For the former solution: you now have to buy ~10 indicators for every field, many/most of which are going to be unused, likely killing batteries non stop. For the latter solution: I as an umpire don't really care that the field scoreboard gets updated, that is some teen in the press-box's job (or some parent with gamechanger). So there is no way I'm going to pay anything more than a 'dumb' indicator, and even then I probably wouldn't if it isn't exactly like the one I have and like. ALTERNATIVELY: I wonder if there is perhaps a greater interest in an interface-device for existing scoreboards to hook into gamechanger? SOME way for the home-book (or whoever the person updating the gamechanger app is) to make it so updates from the app go directly to the scoreboard. The challenge is that the scoreboard controllers are far from standardized interfaces, so you probably need to engineer a solution on a per-manufacturer bases. The device would have to be web-enabled somehow, which probably means a cell-phone chip (and a cell-phone plan!). Additionally, I don't believe gamechanger makes it easy to get to their API for something like this, so you'd have to convince them to share that.

I'm a fan of the pitch clock, of all the changes to this year's MLB rules, its the only one I like (and I say this as a Nomar fan!). The game USED to be fast, and is pretty quick at all levels, except for MLB, where I zone out and have to switch channels while waiting for a pitcher and batter to stare lovingly at each other waiting for SOMEONE to get ready. Repeat 200x a game. The players will get used to it, and the games will be shorter (MiLB games reduced by ~25 minutes IIRC), but more importantly, the games will be quicker. The part of the game I want to see is the pitches, and the hits, not the waiting between. This won't get called 99% of games once the players all get used to it, and we'll all get better baseball.

FWIW, I give the speech with on how to approach us and what to approach us with for 3 reasons: 1- It sets the expectation of how they can talk to us. Anything done outside of that gets a short leash for ejection. 2- It sets the list of things we are allowed to discuss with them to a short list (question about what we saw, or the rules we are applying). 3- It gives us an opportunity to show that we're approachable under the right circumstances, which I find goes a long way to improving our discussions on the field. In general, I've had better luck with coaches when I've given some level of speech than when I haven't. I realize they rarely listen to what we say, but by the end of the day giving the same speech to the same coaches (during tourney ball!) or the end of a season, it seemed to sink in for htem.

So the umpire can definitely use other evidence. I seem to remember reading at one point a fairly famous case where the batter used the fact that some of his shoe polish got on the ball to prove that it hit him! A quick googling says the batter was Nippy Jones.

One of the nice things that they did in our area was give us the ability to toss fans directly if we care to. Additionally, I'm told we can 'criminal trespass' fans if we like, so if they refuse to leave we can get the police to take them away. The local tourney organization I work for does something similar: if an ump wants a fan gone, he has to leave the facility for the remainder of the game, and a site director makes it happen. We of course DO have to justify it to our assigner afterwards, but its also a nice tool to have in our pocket. In exchange, we're expected to work respectfully with the fans, but it is sometimes quite useful.

The more expensive one used a memory foam that gets similar protection but is 3/4" thick instead of 1". Makes it quite less bulky.

My games yesterday were 85+, and on Turf in direct sunlight. I was melting... in Oregon, in October!

I also wear an undershirt, but obviously not under my collar. It seems to just be in the area around my neck? I've had this problem washing same-night as well... I DO wonder if it is sunblock related though... hmm... My wife suggested oxyclean, so we're going to give that a shot today

Yeah, I don't wear aluminum deoderant either, this is the ones on the collar (I see I wasn't clear there!) transferred from my neck. I originally thought it was sweat + dirt, but I worked on turf yesterday and got the same problem.

So I've only done ~100 games this year, and have a couple of shirts where the collar has a dark brown stain around the top, and it looks awful. I just opened a brand new cream shirt yesterday, and after two games, it looks awful as well. For my light-blue, I brought it to a dry cleaner, and they weren't able to get much to happen to it. Is there a secret soak or something I can do to get rid of these? Having to replace a $50 shirt every 2 games would make this an unfortunate value proposition.

I believe this is why NFHS ejection of a player is 'restrict to dugout', right?

Yes, that game counts, they played at least 4.5 innings with the home team winning. They don't have to finish the last inning, same as a team who goes ahead in the bottom of the 9th doesn't have to get their 3rd out for the game to count.

Ah, in tourneys, ejections can have a couple of levels of 'severity'. The first is for minor things, which is 'rest of game'. The second is '+1', which means "this game, plus the next". Our tourney also has "Rest of day", "Rest of tourney", and sometimes, "Forever". The 1st 2 (rest of game vs +1) is up to the ump to decide on their own. Ump + Site Director can do a "Rest of Day", and typically Tourney Director is required for the other two.