In the zone

[grayhawk]

Pardon the brag, but I was lucky enough on Sunday to have one of those games where I was just "in the zone". Man, is that a great feeling! It was a 12U Pony game, one-man mechanics, and I couldn't think back to a single pitch that I wasn't sure about. The VC is a known hot head (and father of a current major league player) and I literally didn't hear BOO from him all game. Game tied after 7 and decided in the 8th, 4-3. Since this was the first game of the Pony season for each team, there was a large crowd and I can't remember any whining from any of the parents either.

Most fun play of the game: With R1 stealing on the pitch, F1 blows through his stop and I call balk. He delivers the pitch which is bunted between third and the mound. At this point, everything just stops. R1 is about 3/4 of the way to 2nd and slows down and keeps walking. While the ball sits in the infield for what seemed like an eternity, and BR just standing about 10 feet up the 1B line, FINALLY one of the coaches yells, "Play it!" By this time, R1 is standing on 2nd and F1 picks up the ball and throws to F3. At this time, I call time and enforce the balk, ask BR to return and announce "no pitch" to the scorekeeper. F1 is bewildered and his coach tells him to ask me what he did. I simply say "no stop" and the coach tells him to make sure he comes to a complete stop.

How often do you have those games where everything seems to happen so slowly that you feel almost infallible out there? I'm a third year umpire and did about 75 games last year and while I felt I had many good games, this one just really stood out to me. Oh yeah, we also finished 8 innings in 1:45!

Thanks for reading. I could tell my non-umpire friends about this, but they wouldn't understand.

[Umpire in Chief]

Its good to have these every once and again. Makes up for the rough ones.

Good game.

[JaxRolo]

NICE!!!!!

[johnnyg08]

Good for you, that's a good feeling.

[semper_fi_72]

Those games are always fun.

[mstaylor]

Nothing better than having a game where you are in the zone. You always try to do your best but on the rare occasion when you are really in the zone everything is just easy.

[grayhawk]

Didn't want to start a new topic, so I thought I would add on to this one. I had the opportunity to work with a D1 umpire in a 13U Pony game yesterday. I had the plate. He is a Big West umpire and also works some Pac 12 and WCC. It was great to post game with him and I soaked up as much as I could. He said I had excellent mechanics and timing and gave me some great pointers. He's also an evaluator in our HS unit and offered to file an eval because "I want the deserving guys to move up." He wants to work a game with me on the bases to get the full picture. He was surprised to hear that I had been umpiring for only three years (two in HS).

I couldn't resist asking him about putting the ball in play. He said that he does it every time, with or without runners. His verbal is less vigorous with no runners.

[johnnyg08]

Good for you. Keep up the good work. Sounds like the guy you worked with has his head on straight. If only they were all like him.

Thanks for sharing!

[NCAAump2]

Great job...nothing better than that!