They're Not All Rats

[moblue]

I try hard not to use the term rat when referring to coaches. Sure there are some I don't like particularly well, but that's how it goes. I try not to use the term because I really don't see coaches as the "bad guy" as much as that they are competitive adults that want their team to win.

Tonight I called an 11/12 yr. old game solo after working a 9/10 solo. I was worn down starting the second game, but tried not to let it bother me. I had seen these two teams play each other in pre-season and it was a blowout, so I figured I'd see a repeat. I was dead wrong! We ended up going an extra inning because the score was tied 1-1 after 6.

Now, the reason for the title of this thread:

During the game I messed up big not once, but TWICE! The first time I called a strike on a batter. I looked at my indicator (clicker, choose your term) and said as the batter started to walk off and kids began to run off the field "I've got 0-2." He still ran off, along with everyone else. I didn't want to cheat anyone, so I asked the home HC what he had. He didn't know and didn't think his book would even have it. The visiting AC didn't know the count, and so we called the visiting HC over. In the meantime the visitors are out and starting to warm up for the next inning. No one knew the count, but since the visitors were batting I wasn't too surprised when their HC agreed with my count. I gave VT the option (they were pretty laid back guys so I figured they may just say forget it and want to move on). Instead they chose to bat. The kid grounded out to the pitcher who threw to F3. That looked bad because I had to pull the visitors off the field and put the HT back for one batter.

The second instance I had a K and looked down at my indicator again and thought I saw a 3 in the outs. Apparently I was looking at the strikes, but still said "That's 3." In the meantime F2 pops up and tries to pick-off R1, but overthrows the base. R1 takes off to second and makes it in, with me yelling "That's 3" the whole time. After everything stopped the Visting AC said "That's just 2." I looked down and whattaya know, I have a big fat "2" in the outs. I sent the runner back to first under the premise that the ball was dead when I declared three outs, because one or more fielders may have given up on the play. The visiting HC defended my call to his AC and the parents.

I went up to both teams' coaches after I was finally starting to pull myself back together and apologized for my mistakes. Neither one of them had anything negative to say when I messed up, or when I apologized to them. The answer from one team was "Don't worry about it. You're doing a good job." The other team, "We're all human. Everybody makes mistakes." I told them most coaches would be all over me the rest of the game. These guys weren't, and I was floored by how nice they were during situations that most coaches would go ballistic in. I'm even thinking about talking to the league president to recommend they be put on the all-star teams if they aren't already.

The main point for this is that while most umpires seem to say coaches that aren't rats are few and far between, I managed to have a night where I had FOUR great coaches.

[zm1283]

I try hard not to use the term rat when referring to coaches. Sure there are some I don't like particularly well, but that's how it goes. I try not to use the term because I really don't see coaches as the "bad guy" as much as that they are competitive adults that want their team to win.

Tonight I called an 11/12 yr. old game solo after working a 9/10 solo. I was worn down starting the second game, but tried not to let it bother me. I had seen these two teams play each other in pre-season and it was a blowout, so I figured I'd see a repeat. I was dead wrong! We ended up going an extra inning because the score was tied 1-1 after 6.

Now, the reason for the title of this thread:

During the game I messed up big not once, but TWICE! The first time I called a strike on a batter. I looked at my indicator (clicker, choose your term) and said as the batter started to walk off and kids began to run off the field "I've got 0-2." He still ran off, along with everyone else. I didn't want to cheat anyone, so I asked the home HC what he had. He didn't know and didn't think his book would even have it. The visiting AC didn't know the count, and so we called the visiting HC over. In the meantime the visitors are out and starting to warm up for the next inning. No one knew the count, but since the visitors were batting I wasn't too surprised when their HC agreed with my count. I gave VT the option (they were pretty laid back guys so I figured they may just say forget it and want to move on). Instead they chose to bat. The kid grounded out to the pitcher who threw to F3. That looked bad because I had to pull the visitors off the field and put the HT back for one batter.

The second instance I had a K and looked down at my indicator again and thought I saw a 3 in the outs. Apparently I was looking at the strikes, but still said "That's 3." In the meantime F2 pops up and tries to pick-off R1, but overthrows the base. R1 takes off to second and makes it in, with me yelling "That's 3" the whole time. After everything stopped the Visting AC said "That's just 2." I looked down and whattaya know, I have a big fat "2" in the outs. I sent the runner back to first under the premise that the ball was dead when I declared three outs, because one or more fielders may have given up on the play. The visiting HC defended my call to his AC and the parents.

I went up to both teams' coaches after I was finally starting to pull myself back together and apologized for my mistakes. Neither one of them had anything negative to say when I messed up, or when I apologized to them. The answer from one team was "Don't worry about it. You're doing a good job." The other team, "We're all human. Everybody makes mistakes." I told them most coaches would be all over me the rest of the game. These guys weren't, and I was floored by how nice they were during situations that most coaches would go ballistic in. I'm even thinking about talking to the league president to recommend they be put on the all-star teams if they aren't already.

The main point for this is that while most umpires seem to say coaches that aren't rats are few and far between, I managed to have a night where I had FOUR great coaches.

You don't need to yell and scream to get them to stop if there are three outs. Just let them look silly for a few moments. With that said, you need to know how many outs there are without having to look at your indicator.

[catoblue]

One thing that helps with our league, is that several of the coaches are also umpires. Since our league opted to use volunteers, we always have a shortage of umpires, and the way we work around it is Majors coaches call Minor games, and vise-versa.

The best part of this, is that our coaches have a much stronger appreciation of their umpire's job and actually take the time to read the rule book - and we rarely have any chirping at all - at least from our teams, now when we play teams from our "extended" league, it's a different story. The other communities all pay their umps and the coaches have no idea what it's like to call a game, and many have never opened the little green book.

[Dragon29]

. . . the way we work around it is Majors coaches call Minor games, and vise-versa.

A couple of seasons ago, when I was still UIC of our LL, a couple of people on the BOD asked if we could do something like this, as we also use volunteers exclusively. While we use only 'District' level umpires for Juniors games, the other divisions are all manager/coach/parent volunteers.

They said the Majors managers/coaches could umpire AAA; AAA could umpire AA and so on. When I said, "Who's going to umpire the Majors? The T-Ball coaches?" they thought better of their suggestion.

[softballcoach]

A couple of seasons ago, when I was still UIC of our LL, a couple of people on the BOD asked if we could do something like this, as we also use volunteers exclusively. While we use only 'District' level umpires for Juniors games, the other divisions are all manager/coach/parent volunteers.

They said the Majors managers/coaches could umpire AAA; AAA could umpire AA and so on. When I said, "Who's going to umpire the Majors? The T-Ball coaches?" they thought better of their suggestion.

I like the idea of switching up the coaches to umpire other levels instead of umpiring in the same divisions. (minus the t-ball coaches anyway)

[catoblue]

A couple of seasons ago, when I was still UIC of our LL, a couple of people on the BOD asked if we could do something like this, as we also use volunteers exclusively. While we use only 'District' level umpires for Juniors games, the other divisions are all manager/coach/parent volunteers.

They said the Majors managers/coaches could umpire AAA; AAA could umpire AA and so on. When I said, "Who's going to umpire the Majors? The T-Ball coaches?" they thought better of their suggestion.

We only use umpires in Majors and Minors, T ball, and Machine-pitch (we call it pony) are purely instructional and do not use umpires, so it works out pretty well with the Minors coaches calling Majors games and Majors coaches calling Minors games. Umpiring in a division that they are not coaching, eliminates any perceived conflict of interest.

We have probably 4 or 5 of us that no longer coach, who also call games, so that helps too.