NateWalter
Members-
Posts
58 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
NateWalter last won the day on April 3 2023
NateWalter had the most liked content!
Profile Information
-
Location
Missouri
More information about you
-
Your Association Name
USSSA
-
Occupation
Pastor
-
Types/Levels of Baseball called
USSSA, Middle School, High School
-
How did you hear about Umpire-Empire?
Search Engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, ...)
Recent Profile Visitors
The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.
NateWalter's Achievements
49
Reputation
-
So here's the other conundrum: if the home team goes back out there, it's been a good 2-3 minutes. The pitcher hasn't pitched that entire time. Do we let him warm up again? How do we protect the pitcher in this case? Again, it was the offense that left the field first, then the defense left in response.
-
Weird one from last night. 13U (USSSA) matchup. The game was going smoothly until the 5th inning, that's when the game went off the rails. In one half inning, we had two injuries, a pitching change, an error fest. All in all, that one half inning took nearly 35 minutes. (Oddly, we still finished 7 innings in 1 hour and 45 minutes.) The order of things went something like this (I'm giving this to the best of my recollection): Out 1 A ton of hits and walks and errors Injury (stemming from a hit by pitch) A lengthy delay to check on batter More hits, more walks, more errors An injury to the shortstop. A pitching change. Note: It's important to note that I reminded the new pitcher that there was just one out. I reminded everyone that there was just one out. No one said anything to disagree with me. Out 2 After Out 2, the hitting team (Visitor) leaves the field, as their coach told them there were 3 outs. The defense (Home) leaves the field, mercifully. Now, it's important to also note two things: First, my partner and I were both confused. We both had that last out as the second out. We got together and decided if they wanted to stop hitting with only two outs, we weren't going to stop them. We would consider it a forfeiture of their third out. Second, the visiting team had been on the field, thrown multiple warm up pitches and the catcher was getting ready to launch it to the second baseman before their coach came out with realization his team only had two outs. He was pleading with us to let his team come back up and try to get his third out (mind you, they were ahead 9-1, or something like that... they didn't need the extra runs). We told them no. We felt as though he missed his window to appeal this, and he shouldn't have sent his kids out to warm up before appealing this. I've been scouring the rulebooks trying to figure out if my ruling was correct. Perhaps I missed something, so I'll bring it here. Were we right to not let them come back and hit again after they left the field (and subsequently warmed up on defense) with just two outs?
-
2 Ejections(kinda) in a weekend, have I mentioned I HATE 10U?
NateWalter replied to ErichKeane's topic in Ejections
I'm starting a petition for the Walk-Off Mercy Rule. -
2 Ejections(kinda) in a weekend, have I mentioned I HATE 10U?
NateWalter replied to ErichKeane's topic in Ejections
If the games weren't 1:45 for 9U, I'd probably agree. But that's an obscene length of game for kids who haven't made it out of 4th grade. Those games should be limited, at most, to 1:30, with a hard stop at 1:45 or 2:00. We discuss player safety all the time and part of our job is to help ensure the safety of these kids. But then we let games go on for ever. I have no qualms with moving the clock back by a minute or two if it helps prevent a situation where a 9U game goes for 2:45. A game at that level going that long also means kids are throwing a crazy amount of pitches, unless these teams are 15-18 kids deep. Simply put, that shouldn't happen, so working around a clock to prevent it from happening isn't that out of pocket. -
2 Ejections(kinda) in a weekend, have I mentioned I HATE 10U?
NateWalter replied to ErichKeane's topic in Ejections
Also, I'll be that guy: I hate music at this level. Walk-up songs, in between innings... all of it. Maybe I'm a grump, but it's almost always a problem. I had a game last summer where they'd play music in between innings and some Kanye song (I think it was Kanye, I'm not up to speed on hip hop) came on and it was the uncensored version. I told the coach that if I heard any foul language in the music again, I would restrict him to his dugout for the game. "It's just a song, relax." "If I won't let your pitcher say it, I won't let Kanye say it. Clean up the music or get out." They ended up just turning off the speaker and the coach said, "happy now?" I was. -
2 Ejections(kinda) in a weekend, have I mentioned I HATE 10U?
NateWalter replied to ErichKeane's topic in Ejections
This is the standard for probably most tournaments, and it's why I don't like working a lot of them. You get to a point where one of the games ends up going nearly three hours. Think of it this way: your 9U game went longer than the average MLB game has gone this year. That absolutely should not be happening. -
2 Ejections(kinda) in a weekend, have I mentioned I HATE 10U?
NateWalter replied to ErichKeane's topic in Ejections
When you put a clock on baseball, there's going to be a grey area. Our league adopted a policy that the first pitch of the following inning must be done while there is still time on the clock. That would prevent the whole "there's 10 seconds left!" when the last out is recorded. In practice, if there are less than 2 minutes, we don't start a new inning unless there's a tie or the home team needs one more at bat to win. Maybe it's not a perfect way of doing things, but it works for us. -
I wasn't even told who my partner was until about 90 minutes before the game. We get a lot of guys from the local college baseball teams that umpire, and if they have makeup games, the kids don't communicate that with the director. This forces him to move umpires around from field to field, and often the partner we were assigned to a week earlier is not the partner we end up working with. I'm working my game tonight (or supposed to be) with a regular, so if it stays the same, we shouldn't have this problem.
-
If you've been assigned with a new partner, do that person a favor and answer text messages that are sent regarding the game! I was working with a college kid for a 13U doubleheader, and about an hour prior to the games, texted him introducing myself, and asked, "hey [name], two questions: what color shirt are you wanting to wear, I have black, navy and powder blue and do you want to work plate first game or second?" 30 minutes to game time, I hadn't heard a response. I didn't see him in the parking lot. There was no one changing into gear anywhere else. So I text back, "I'm gearing up, wearing navy. I'll let you work plate second game"... I geared up, walked to the field (the parking lot is a good distance from the fields) and there he was: in his plate gear, wearing powder blue... playing on his phone. He sees me, comes over and I ask him if he didn't get any of my messages. He did. He just "forgot" to respond to them. One of the coaches even mentions, "uh oh, they didn't communicate"... and it makes us look like idiots. It's 15 minutes to game time, and it's gonna take me at least 10 to get to my vehicle, gear down, and get back. So I just take off the plate gear in a dugout. My partner parked and took his umpire gear to the field and changed at the field, so he was able to switch into a navy shirt, but it just looked embarrassing for both of us. Moral of the story: check your text messages when you're at the field. Communicate with your partner. If you don't know their number, get it from the assignor or Arbiter or whatever fancy-schmancy scheduling software your league uses. Otherwise, you'll both look like total morons.
-
This question was asked of my USSSA league, and because we have time limits for games, we don't use a pitch clock. However, keeping the game moving and not allowing for the pitcher or batter to delay the game is still a good part of game management.
-
While we're at it, let's just eject any player that walks on the field. Just to ensure that no one does anything to want to fight the other player. After all, we can't have people looking or talking to one another!!!
-
Enforcing it is still a judgment call, is it not? You still have to make a judgment of whether or not it is deemed unsportsmanlike. As an umpire, situational awareness is crucial. And in this case, warning a player who "glances" at the opposing dugout, as a response to being yelled at, proves that the umpire doesn't have the situational awareness to properly assess what occurred. When players are being yelled at, they will naturally look at the person/people yelling at them. If the directive you've been given requires you to ignore situational awareness or consider the facts involved, then frankly, stop working for that league.
-
Just to be clear, I've done my fair share of high school officiating, as I did so in Iowa for 3 years. Iowa does HS baseball in the summer. This allowed me to pick up a JV doubleheader at 10AM on random weekdays or call a varsity game in the evening. When I moved to Missouri, the spring schedule didn't work so easily with my family and work schedule, so I decided to simply help the local league here when I can. If I had time to do HS ball again, I most certainly would. (I'm moving to Indiana and would happily do HS ball if someone has some connections)
-
A few things: 1. Yes, this was probably a quick pitch (I'm a massive Giants fan, too). It was the wrong call. 2. The umpire even let Anderson get a few words in. But when he kept going from the bench, he ran him. 3. There are some that argue Webb should have been tossed as well, but I don't believe that was necessary. The umpire let Anderson have a word. He let Webb have a word. Webb discontinued after that, Anderson did not. 4. Anderson has two incidents of making contact with umpires in his fairly brief MLB career, both resulted in suspensions. Maybe it's not fair, but he's not going to receive much benefit of the doubt from officials.