orangebird

Asked the UIC for us and he thinks they double booked the field, not ideal for logistics!

In an inauspicious start to org 2…learnt my first game was cancelled once I got to the field lol. Didn’t have my own ride to the game so I’m currently waiting for pickup whole watching an U15 or something travel game warm up lol Still getting paid at least lmfao

Haha I understood your first point just fine, I was asking more about Guess the quote preview cutoff did me no favors there

First plate game with a base umpire tomorrow, emailed him when I got the assignment and did a 24 hours before first pitch text check-in and his responses didn't sound super dry, what a breath of fresh air lol

Could you elaborate on that? I think I get what you mean but want to be sure

Yeah fair enough, this is why I figured I should let the people with more than 3 games under their belt give their opinions haha

1. Yeah I can definitely buy that. Still think the first time I'd see an 80 mph pitch up-and-in would make me feel like I'm about to die but I'd also guess the kids catching 80 mph know how to catch better than your local 9-year-old in rec ball 2. Yeah I did that for the rest of the game. I kinda figured anything that hit me at that speed wouldn't hurt and I mean it didn't break anything but I know fully understand a baseball hitting you at basically any speed when you're not bracing your body for it is definitely gonna leave some soreness

Yeah I mean I've worked precisely 3 games in my umpiring career so I'll defer to the more experienced folks but my understanding across all levels is it's not obstruction if you're in the act of making a play on the ball and F3 made contact with the runner while catching the pickoff so I think it's nothing

I don't work HS but the fairness concern isn't something I'd worry about because the rules (or lack thereof) will apply for both teams, if team A gets a fresh 90 pitches from their ace because of rain then so could team B

Well today I learned! Definitely means I enforced it correctly even if it was an unassisted force at 2B 😎

Think anything above high school would create travel that I wouldn't enjoy regardless of any raises it'd come with. I found a form for the org that covers my county and gave them my contact info but didn't get a confirmation e-mail or anything like that so hopefully it worked. Probably will make a separate thread at some point asking for what you'd include in an email to them basically saying "hey I know I'm a little too late to be trained for this year but would still like to know more about the process for next year"

Alright game 2 of plate umpiring seemingly went better! I felt way more comfortable expanding the zone outside if it wasn't also super high or super low. High pitches and low pitches I felt I was still guessing on a bit more just because of the pitch trajectory that comes a 9-year-old trying to get it over felt but still think I called more of those strikes than last time. There was also what looked like a pretty clean strike the catcher got out of the way of just due to being 9 and inexperienced I guess lol and I still called that a strike which the hitting dugout let out disgruntled murmurs about. Not sure I'm ever going to feel totally comfortable with the top and bottom of the zone as long as kids are throwing lobs and if I can at least feel confident about expanding outside then that's a good start. Also had my first genuinely bang-bang play at 1st, ruled out, hitting team didn't complain, baserunner didn't complain so that's a good enough endorsement to me. Did have my first "coach, that's the rule" situation where they made a play to get the force at second and then threw it home out of play and the fielding coach seemed to be confused about my awarding two bases and I explained it's from the time of the throw if it's the second throw of the play (I'm pretty sure it was the second throw at least 😅). Wasn't sure if he was confused about where the runners were during the throw or just assumed it was two from the pitch anywhere in the infield but it didn't lead to an argument or any further escalation so no harm, no foul. First foul ball off my hand, my right index finger hurts a bit but nothing too serious. Definitely felt like I improved from how I handled the first game behind the plate and when my tally of career plate games is currently two, feels like that's all you can ask for.

What are we meant to notice here?

Yeah org 2 will seemingly assign us both 9-10 and 11-12 where org 1 is strictly plate 9-10 and base 10-11 (you go up age levels each year you work 4 games) so I will hopefully get some 11-12 reps in soon

Alright org 2 has started scheduling so I'm checking their league-specific rules, can't tell if I think this is a good idea to speed up the game or a bad idea because everyone should get the chance to see at least 3 pitches They also have a modified type of stealing rules for 9-10, you can steal 2nd and 3rd once the pitch crosses the plate...but you can't steal home and you can't advance on an overthrow from the catcher

Not directly related to your post but I've seen it a bunch where I figure I might as well ask: why does everyone prefer using F1/F2/F3/etc instead of P/C/1B/etc to refer to the positions? I can still figure out what everyone means but it def makes me take a second to remember which number is which position.

PA announcer should've played the womp womp sound effect after he got shut down lol

Is MLBUM different from the OBR?

I agree, just struggled with balancing my instinct of what the zone feels like and what the guidance is for this level, will definitely try to get more comfortable expanding it for the rest of the season LOL the chalk for our batter's boxes was gone so quickly I'm honestly starting to question if it even existed at the start of the game but I'll def try to use my assumption of where it is at least

Yeah I like that perspective. Maybe this isn't perfectly apples to apples but it feels like teaching preschool or kindergarten and being told "eh it's okay if they say 2+2=5, let them build up their confidence at this age" where I understand the idea of wanting to be forgiving to kids just starting out but all your instincts are saying "this is incorrect regardless of how inexperienced you are" Now that I know what to expect I hope I should feel more comfortable starting my next game with a bigger zone, just hope it finds the middle ground of creating balls in play without frustrating the batters into feeling like they need to chase everything where I hand out 2 walks but have 10 K's swinging

1. Yeah I understand all of that, trust me haha, just felt like one of those things where it's one thing be taught what the zone should be and another thing to try to apply it seeing it live for the first time in your ump career. I know I could've started expanding it once I realized how many walks I was giving out but wanted to err on the side of game-wide consistency. Also I don't think this league uses pitch counts, 2 kids can go 2 innings is the only rule I'm aware of there but point taken regardless. Consistency vs encouraging balls in play is really the central conflict for me with this, I felt like my "these would be MLB strikes" zone was pretty accurate, where trying to expand it would have me worried I'd call a strike on a pitch over the middle that was at a kid's head. 2. That's good to hear, our scheduling service (Horizon Web Ref) has a little forum thing to discuss any situations so I posted it there to see if the assigner or the the ump who led the training has any guidance there 3. I loved you in the Wizard of Oz

Also just occurred to me: the no new inning/hard stop limits go up by 15 minutes for each age group which makes sense but also feels kinda brutal that the level that'll have the most walks gets the least amount of time to try to complete 6

Alright, drumroll please...tonight was my actual first game behind the plate. Had an issue with the mail being outrageously slow with a couple items for my previously scheduled first game behind the plate but that got resolved and tonight was the plate debut. Let's review! The zone you're meant to call at this level vs the what the "actual" zone would be if we used rules for HS or older tripped me up from the first pitch. I was definitely squeezing the kids, but it felt easier to call a tight zone that I knew felt consistent instead of trying to figure out how large I should make the zone. The ball trajectory + amount of times a kid failed to catch the pitch are definitely things you can't be trained for until you see them for 2 hours. I still think I'd rather oversee a walkfest than call strikes on balls a kid can barely put in play. Neither coach had any huge complaints or anything so that was a relief. Clean game besides that! No appeals on tag-ups I didn't see, no kids getting hit in the face with a grounder and worrying if I called time too early. No obstruction, no runner interference, only one ball thrown out of play as best I can remember. No particularly close plays again, I could figure this out after the first game but it really doesn't seem anything put in play will make you break a sweat on the call at this age level and being rec and not travel. I did have to tell a kid a HBP isn't an automatic one-base advance if you're on second with first base empty and sent another kid back to his base trying to advance once the pitcher had it near the mound, which makes it dead for this level. There was a catcher who took a low pitch to the CP and it knocked the wind out of him and he had to stop catching for at least the rest of the inning. Realized our league didn't give any instructions for if the new catcher should get a warm-up pitch or two to settle into catching, but I decided that giving him two warmups was a reasonable compromise. As for the gear: nothing hit the mask, one clean shot to the CP that didn't hurt, think the leg guards protected a couple wild pitches but nothing stood out there. Also this is org #1 and they gave us just a normal 8-stitch hat and there was no way in hell that was gonna work facing forward for 2 hours so I just put it on backwards lol. Overall I felt like I handled the game fine, a consistent hitter-friendly zone is better than guessing how much I should expand it to be forgiving to kids in year 1 or year 2 of kid-pitch, but yeah I can't say that calling balls and strikes on 9-year-olds is super enjoyable lol

Not working HS yet but through the magic of the internet I can still see HS schedules for my county I'm only seeing singleheaders

Age levels, international is 9-10, no idea what the flagship LL calls that age group