orangebird

Yeah our training did include the kids who'll work 70-foot and 80-foot games where I think some sort of clarification between the dimensions would've been helpful if the official Little League 60-feet rules don't support the cone Could you or anyone else provide any official documents/videos/etc for that? Obviously believe y'all, just would like to see directly to see if there's any other gaps between our training and the official LL guidance for 60-foot diamonds

That does make sense for the size of the field but our training still wanted us to use the cone. However, after this play...might personally overrule them going forward haha

Couple other things to highlight now that I've slept on it Heard the kids on both teams playing 2B/SS sound frustrated that kids were stealing on basically every pitch without there ever being a throw down. It makes sense if you think your catcher's arm has zero chance to get the kid and might sail it into the outfield to give them some more bases but man those middle infielders seemed like they weren't having fun covering for throws that never arrived. Staying on the topic of runners advancing and catchers struggling, I definitely had a "oh boy I hope I didn't forget the rules" moment for when the ball is dead in little league when it's near the pitcher's mound. There were a couple times the catcher threw it back to the pitcher poorly and the runners advanced and I believe that's treated the same as the catcher just making a bad throw to second or third but definitely wasn't polished on reviewing the rules for that where that was the only time I genuinely felt caught off guard by a rules application. However, just letting it play out was seemingly correct, the rules for that league only say: "The ball is dead when the pitcher has the ball on the dirt surrounding the pitching rubber". So if the catcher throws it wildly back to the pitcher, the kiddos can run until the pitcher has it on the mound. I was honestly more than a little worried about my body feeling sore during the game from the amount of uninterrupted standing but whatever mix of focus and adrenaline I had meant I felt totally fine during the game. We'll see how 2 hours of going in and out of the slot feels but at least for base I'm hoping I'll continue to feel fresh for the whole game. This confirmed that I really really would've wanted the on-field training to include something resembling a scrimmage, I didn't really have any issues with applying the mechanics at game speed but it still would've been nice to practice something like getting into position to call safe/out on a triple from starting in position A

That's interesting, the official LL doesn't believe in the cone?

60, 46 for the mound

Howdy folks, As you may have seen in my little league umpiring thread (check it out if you haven't) I worked my first game as the base umpire and encountered a situation that struck me as a pretty tricky encounter in a 2-man crew The bases were loaded with less than two outs and a fly ball was hit into the cone but a bit to the left of CF where anything happening at 1B was pretty much totally out of my line of sight. After the ball was caught and thrown back in, the fielding team appealed to first and I simply admitted it wasn't in my line of sight and couldn't make a fair ruling on that decision. My takeaway afterwards was that should be the plate umpire's responsibility (not blaming him, first game of the season for both of us) but I checked Umpire Bible and their page on two-man responsibilities from position C suggests the plate umpire should pay attention to third base in that kind of situation. So...is there some way for 2 umpires to monitor 3 kids leaving early or not while also making the call on catch/no catch that I'm missing? Or did I simply begin my umpiring career with a pretty unlucky appeal that tested the limits of the 2-man system.

Not directly but we have no new inning rules where I'd at least like to know when it's the top or bottom when signalling that (we can ask the scorekeeper but I'd really prefer not to just in terms of wanting to seem competent lol)

Alrighty, let's debrief In terms of judgment calls there was basically nothing that felt particularly bang-bang and quite frankly I think we had maybe 2 total outs made as normal force plays at first and I don't think anything resembled an attempted 4-6-3/6-4-3 double play. I had two situations I'd consider murky 1. There was an appeal for if the runners left early on a fly ball and quite frankly I was watching the ball where the baserunners weren't really on my radar until it was caught. I don't think if you're working B/C you can really notice what every baserunner is doing and once I hit send on this message I'm gonna look into what exactly the plate umpire should do in a situation like that 2. There was a grounder to third that hit a kid in the face and I called time basically instantly once he went down. I think the guidance was to err on the side of player safety and even if it isn't, a 10-year-old just got hit in the face with a ball, the outcome of a play in a 10-year-old rec ball game can wait. Goodness gracious there was plenty of movement on the bases. Even with the "wait until it crosses the plate" rule, the kids were scooting on basically every pitch and I don't think either team's catcher even made a throw. I will note that checking the bases on basically every pitch made following the count slightly tricky, I honestly didn't catch the call half the time because I was pivoting to make sure the kid touched the base and all that I was also pretty unpolished for what the rules are for when a kid can run on the catcher throwing it back to the pitcher on a live ball. The game survived without enforcement of that being a concern at any point, but yeaaah that will definitely need to be studied before my next game at that level. I lost count of the inning a bit too quickly. Was pretty focused on each play where the actual passage of the game was on the backburner for me tbh. My indicator has an inning counter that I used, but bottom/top of the inning escaped me perhaps a bit too quickly, might need some sort of pen and paper tracker just to help me there. Coaches were chill, parents were chill, chit-chat with the first-base coaches was chill, no complaints interacting with the adults This is awkward to mention but still important: just wore my normal briefs with my cup and yeah we're going shopping for compression shorts before my next game for sure lol I've got more than a few days off due to the sheer number of umps (100+ passed the test I believe) and me blocking out Thur-Sunday of both weekends of March Madness so check in on March 25 for my first game working the plate Also if anyone has any follow up questions don't hesitate to ask, might be something I'm forgetting right now that I want to focus on/review Thanks for reading!

#4 is the relevant rule but no penalty is written

@Velho Do not know the UIC's family tree lol and given that it's not written down anywhere in the league's rules (I checked) I'll see how much it happens tomorrow and if it comes up multiple times I'll e-mail him and say it needs some official guidance

Ah okay, my game tomorrow will follow the no stealing until it crosses the plate rule but since this isn't affiliated with the official Little League there's no red flags I'm aware of lol I actually asked the umpire coordinator and he said there's no official rule but his personal suggestion straight from his email is... Which seems reasonable to me

I'm afraid I don't know what that refers to lol

First game eve thoughts bouncing around -I wish the on-field training included a scrimmage or at least something with the actual kids we'll be working with, for example if I'm in position A and the kid hits a triple running at full speed, I have no idea how much time I'll have to work my way from 1B foul territory towards getting a good angle at 3B -I have no idea how polished these kids will be, pretty curious if this game will end with 5 obstruction calls and 4 balls thrown out of play or if it'll be played reasonably cleanly. It'll be 10-11s fwiw. -Hoping there aren't any two-man crew logistics issues, I don't want to boss around a 14-year-old who has more experience in this field than me but I definitely want to make sure when we meet in person we've got the responsibilities for each umpire down pat. If I miss a call I can live that but if both of us make a call on the same play that'd look silly and if neither of us make a call on a play well that'd seem like a s--tshow lol. -Going to attempt to hem my pants with two-sided fabric tape for this game before getting them properly tailored so let's hope that tape lasts for 2 hours and 15 minutes lol

Yeah it's the site

I've kinda thought that color definitely doesn't make sense with grey pants, black shoes and (usually) a black mask but alas, first year LL umps don't get consulted for fashion takes lol

Does she show up also wearing a blue polo with red and white stripes much like people would wear a team jersey to show support lol

Drumroll please...I present...baby's first mask! Champro CM72. My first game is base (by my request) so I won't get to use it right off the bat (no pun intended) but figure it's still worth sharing

Welcome! As the previous newest member to hang out here this place is pretty chill and it's nice to talk about some of the details of this stuff that even your friends who like baseball won't find that interesting

As long as that screentime is spent on Umpire Bible reviewing two-man responsibilities!

Would this qualify?

I haven't done my first game yet but as an adult LL ump I wouldn't trust the org had my back if that guy was allowed to coach again so that's my 2 cents

Reached out to my plate umpire for Saturday and folks you'll be shocked to learn the average 9th-grade boy doesn't come across as a particularly energetic texter lol