orangebird

So this happened yesterday and has produced quite a bit of discussion My question from all of this is the basepath rule feels pretty straightforward if the base runner is perfectly in-line with the fielder and then moves three feet when the tag is attempted, but in play like this, when he's already moving away from the fielder before the tag happened it seems more murky. So if a tag attempt is made and runner is already standing three feet away, is basically any movement away from the tag totally fine since he's already three feet away? Based on the call here the answer seems to be yes, but am definitely curious if any casebooks/manuals/etc cover this kind of scenario with the runner already moving away before the tag is attempted. I checked the NFHS casebook and didn't find anything, but I know there's plenty of other literature out there.

Yeah as someone in year 2, I can't say my focus in either year of rules reviewing has been bat rules, feels like something you'd expect the coaches/players/parents/etc to self-enforce. No idea how this ump has gone through their journey of studying the rules and their personal points to focus on, but "when is it an infield fly?" and "what the hell is a courtesy runner and why does HS let you DH for anyone in the lineup?" have been much more at the front of my mind as things that could come up

Some sort of big duffel bag or other way to store the equipment in your vehicle is also worth exploring, you could just leave all of it laying around loose in the trunk but it feels a bit more organized to have...something

Well from what I've seen elsewhere on this site, if it's a walkoff walk, make sure the kid touches first base lol

This was also softball!

Camo hat for whatever military thing is this weekend is the cherry on top, 3 clothing items and only 1 he normally wears lol

Reporting in from rec ball land, where they've got this elaborate run rule that seems to be new for year lol

@Velho could answer this better than me, but it seems like putting your address in here and finding out what Little League is the closest to you seems like the next step. You might also be in a region with assorted rec ball leagues, unaffiliated with the official Little League system, that still offer the same chances for reps https://www.littleleague.org/play-little-league/league-finder/

one of the college umps I worked a JV game with told me this was a problem they have in college, funny to see it mentioned here too

This feels remarkably like AI but if it's somehow not, this appears to be the best site for Kansas umpires https://ksoasports.com/baseball

Funny you mention this, just found a college baseball streaming site that has lots of ump cam Tiktoks, based on the angle it looks like the camera is on the shirt and not the mask

I was going to say, the correct call is being a league without balks at that age lol

Yeah I was going to add this in the post but forgot but if a hitter struggles with a low/away pitches, they can use a tee, if a pitcher struggles with throwing curves, they can throw a bullpen...if an ump struggles with doing rotations properly, well, can't do much other than hope it comes up really often your next game

So as best I can tell I'm done with the HS season. The public school regular season ended on Monday and it's Friday and I haven't randomly been assigned a Catholic school, so I think I can call it now. Let's start with the basic numbers: worked nine games, with one cancellation they forgot to tell us about (half pay, woo!) and one rainout they told us about early enough where we weren't at the field yet, so 11 times I had something show up in Arbiter. I set up my blocks to be open for three games per week and basically always got two so that was definitely noticeable to me. My HS org is pretty big where I don't think they're lacking for bodies and I wasn't trying to bother my assigner, but definitely felt like I could've gotten a few more games in. My partners were always more experienced, as you'd hope for someone new to HS, and I had two partners that were also working some level of college ball, so that was neat. I also randomly managed to have one partner three times, which felt a little surprising for an org this big. As for the actual games, they were largely uneventful. Four of the nine felt particularly competitive and only one game felt like it could go either way entering the seventh. I managed to work four mercy rules and another game that ended 12-4 or something else that felt over by the third inning but couldn't quite get its way to the 10 after 5 threshold. The biggest issue that came up was "did that batted ball touch the batter in the box?", which was a point of discussion in a pair of games. I had plate and the fielding team coach came because he thought a single should've been a foul ball, but I didn't see it and my partner didn't see it so the fielding team coach definitely let out an annoyed "what are we doing people?" or something like that but when he came to me with a lineup change like 20 minutes later he seemingly got over it. Then I had a pretty obvious foul ball off the foot working base I saw, plate ump let it play out, we conferenced and overturned it in about five seconds lol. When I pregamed with one of the college guys he told me that if it looks obvious to you as the base ump, give the plate ump a second, and if it hasn't been called, then you can call it foul, which I found really helpful and will definitely be something I try to use going forward. I also had a runners lane correct no call, which felt nice to get right, actually managed to check off the classic "no white/grey long sleeves for the pitcher" during the windiest game I worked and I finally got to actually call an infield fly multiple times because I swear I never had one last year. I will say for all the emphasis the NFHS test places on the admin, non-gameplay rules like its version of the DH, CRs and the one-time reentry sub stuff, none of that felt like it was within 500 miles of coming up as an issue in any of my games. I don't think the test should get rid of them, but the ratio of "what happens if you pinch hit for the catcher then CR him?" vs "is this obstruction?" feels pretty skewed in the wrong direction to me. I definitely got helpful feedback from my partners, but right now my main thing is I wish I had ways to practice certain scenarios on-command with more experienced umpires offering the training. Like give me a group of HS kids fielding and running the bases and have someone hit fungos for certain scenarios for us to practice how exactly the mechanics should work at game speed. Like I know if I'm plate, my base umpire is in A and they're staying on the line to judge fair/foul down the RF line then I should take the plays on the bases, but it's something I'd feel much more confident in seeing it practiced in a controlled setting. I'd also love "is this a balk?" training where they just have someone do assorted weird-looking things on the mound and we have to figure out if it's just weird or an actual balk. Perhaps the camps offer stuff like that, dunno. As for the rest of the baseball season, I'm definitely fine with sticking with my local rec ball org I worked with last year. I told my assigner as professionally as I can "I'm a HS ump now, don't you dare give me any u10 games" and he's respected that. My HS org does have a bunch of travel, but none of it is in my county and I'm not exactly someone dying to drive over 30 minutes to a game. The HS org does have fall ball weeknight games, which intrigues me as something I'm pretty sure my county doesn't offer, but otherwise I'm prioritizing shorter drives and less intense games even if working travel with the HS org would probably offer more valuable reps. I think if I write any more paragraphs I'll learn if this site has a character limit lol but yeah, that's year one of working high school in the books! 😎

Gotta make sure the college applications have every genre of extracurricular!

Yeah I've seen the clips on r/umpire

#48, don't remember if it's B, C or B and C but it's not A at least

NFHS if it hits something in your back pocket it's a HBP, I was looking at prior tests and I think that exact scenario was on the 2025 test but someone with more than one year of working NFHS rules can correct me

If I filtered this right, pitches low/high but down the middle have been overturned 54% https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/abs-challenges?gameType=regular&shadowZones=12|18&year=2026&challengeType=league&level=mlb&minChal=1&minOppChal=0&sort=overturns_vs_exp_total&sortDir=desc&page=0&pageSize=50 While inside/outside but the middle of the zone vertically are at 53% https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/abs-challenges?gameType=regular&shadowZones=14|16&year=2026&challengeType=league&level=mlb&minChal=1&minOppChal=0

Maybe the coach just felt inspired by this video

I have "pending game" on Monday for Arbiter as we speak lol

If it's the pencil bat then it's a good value, I'm always very charmed by seeing those

Guys you're interrupting the Star Wars discussion smh 😂

Yeah I enjoyed it as what felt like a free-standing Star Wars project that required basically zero knowledge of the lore and then S2 started introducing characters from cartoons and other stuff and I felt pretty checked out after that Also assuming BCG is backup car glasses?