The 2010 Season

[Thunderheads]

Ok, well, ....for most of us, ...the 2010 season is over. With that said, it brings up a question I was thinking of:

What was your 'ONE' 2010 moment that made you say to yourself "good job" or "that call/situation shows me I'm getting better",....etc.... (try to stick with 1 moment that sticks out)

No restrictions, .... go!:)

[semper_fi_72]

Can't say there was a event during a game but was more of a evaluation/recommendation to work a LL Big League Sectional Championship game.

Comments were

"Controls the game, without controlling the game".

"Authoritative yet respectful".

Those comments made me feel that my on field work really is noticed and appreciated by those that count.

[grayhawk]

Probably a minor thing, but there was a call I made at third (working the game alone) where the ball came in high at the same time the runner was sliding. The runner slid into the airborne legs of F5 and F5 landed on top of the runner (who was now about a foot short of the bag). F5 had gloved the ball but had not tagged the runner for what now seemed like an eternity. Runner then sticks his foot out and touches the bag. I call safe and took hell for it from the stands.

No obstruction as F5 was straddling the bag but the throw made him jump up and toward the runner. Runner made a normal slide and there was no malicious act. It was just baseball.

It was the biggest test of my timing I have had yet, and I think I passed with flying colors.

[JaxRolo]

One moment for me was when as a BU during a Championship Babe Ruth Tournament I called a Balk on F1 and there was R1 and R2. Batter Hits the ball anyway down the left field line.

2 Runners score. Batter ends up with a triple. DC wanted a dead ball on the Balk.

The only thing PU did right was not to kill the play on the Balk. He had no idea on the rule.

So I ended up explaining the rule to the coaches and my partner. Made me think that maybe I was learning a few things.

[mstaylor]

I had a play t the plate where one of the fastest kid in the conference got thrown out at the plate and I banged him. The catcher got a good bounce and the pitcher got the tag down buut tagged him on the hip but before he touched the plate. The manager came to complain saying he got him on the hip. I told absolutely corect but before he touched the plate. He was skeptical but went to the dugout. The fans had a meltdown. It was a great example of seeing the play and good timing.

[Jeff C.]

Mine was in a Legion game. It was my first and I was working with a veteran from our assoc. I have a tremendous amount of respect for this umpire. Anyway, there was a rotation during the game and after the play, we made eye contact and he gave me a thumbs up. That felt really good.

[jnazz]

I was PU during a Senior Men's Provincial Championship game (this is the open men's division in Canada) and I had a banger at the dish. On the ball hit to F8 I started at the point of the plate. I then reacted to the throw which brought me into the infield where I had the perfect view of the tag (almost Bruce Froemmingesque). OUT at the plate to end the game. I then realized my progression as an umpire -- I let my baseball senses take me to the best position to see the play.

[yawetag]

It's a small one, but it was in my first game of the high school season. It was my first Varsity assignment, and it happened to be with two of the better teams in the area.

I was PU. With R1, the batter hits one to right-center, and I bust to cover 3B. I'm there for a close play, where R1 was tagged out. After making the call and beginning to return to the plate, the head coach (working as third base coach) says, "Great hustle, Andrew. Good job!" He even said it sincerely!

It was that point that I realized how much I had learned in my few years of service. When I started, I never would have thought to cover 3B in that situation.

[Thunderheads]

Mine is actually a small one too ....

Top of the first, no one on........ground ball to F6, ...with no one on, I'll bust up the line to be there in case we have a pulled foot or something ....on my way back to the plate I hear the VC say ...."wow, ...nice hustle blue!"

I actually got this comment a few times this year, ...but...it's the little things.....

[Umpire in Chief]

I've been thinking about this one for a while. I have 2 small ones too.

My top one is:

One of my better umpiring moments this year happened about an hour before the game actually started. I arrived at the site and as our proceedure tells us to I went to find the home coach to let him know I was there.

This was a varsity assignment with one of the better teams in the area versus a mediocre team. The head coach of the better team has a bit of a reputation as a hot head, but it is more in terms of being passionate about the game and his team, I've never seen him cross the line.

I was walking up to the bullpen where I saw the coach. He notices me and walks up and says, "Warren, I'm really glad to see we've got you today." And started some small talk as we walked to the dougout where he kept the umpires pay log for me to sign in.

This supprised me because he recognized me first of all, and he seemed sincere in saying he was glad to see me. He left me with the feeling that somewhere along the way I'd left a positive impression on him that he'd take note to remember me.

I don't work his games that often, and with very few exceptions when I do work his games the outcome has been determined once they posted the schedule. But there are teams just by luck of the draw I get much more frequently and don't have a clue who I am.

My #2 was:

I was working a summer wooden bat league, one of the players is a JV coach in the area, I've probably worked too many games with. Today he's catching, and we're chatting a bit durring the game. Somewhere in the game while it was still 0-0 he comes up to bat with a runner on third. With 2 strikes the pitch comes in some sort of breaking ball which catches the corner and I punch him out.

As he gets to the dugout enterance he slings his helmet in and starts fussing. I'm thinking, 'this will be a great half inning."

He hustles out as the pitcher is warming up and starts talking to me. Now I'm thinking "here we go" but to my suprise he was b!tching about looking at the pitch. He went on to say that with a lot of umpires it's 50/50 if that pitch is going to be a strike, but he knows I almost always call it a strike, and that when he sees me behind the plate when he's coaching he tells his pitchers to work the corners, and his batters to protect, because I'm going to get them. Later in that half inning his pitcher throws a very similar pitch for strike 3. The batter was walking away before I called it. After the batter had gone away he asked me, "That's where my pitch was wasn't it?"

I told him that was almost the exact same pitch. He said that's why he called it and laughed.

This also was not a direct compliment, but did make me feel pretty good.

[UmpTTS43]

For me, one of my best plate jobs was when I was able to say focued and maintain composure in a game where I had 3 collisions at the plate, a throwing incident followed by team warnings, the benches clearing due to the throwing incident, a batter EJ for drawing a line, a pitching coach EJ, and a walk off HR in the 11th to end the game 2-1. Now that's working. Outside of the collisions, all occured in the 7th and beyond.

[ukce1861]

For me, it was one of my worst games in All-Stars. I had the plate for the District Championship LLSB game. Second pitch of the game, right down the pike - ball. I don't know what happened. A couple of pitches later, the batter was bunting on a pitch that clearly in on the corner. She pulled the bat back (midyear rule change in LL, they have to pull the bat back in SB), so I say, "Ball". There were a couple more pitches that I blew in the first inning, and I felt it all slipping away from me.

After the top of the inning, I stood there knowing everyone knew I was blowing this game, and told myself, "Get the next pitch, the next batter, the next inning." The whole bottom of the inning, I was talking to myself, slowing myself down, focusing. Honestly, the whole game was a struggle, but at the end of the day, I thought I called a pretty good game. I talked to my assigner a couple of days after the game and he said he'd had good reports from a couple of the other umps on that game.

I still don't think it was my best game, but in that same situation last year I would have fallen apart and it would have been downhill from the first...

And yeah, the whole "next pitch, next batter, next inning", came right from this forum. So thanks, guys.

[Umpire in Chief]

ukce:

People don't always appreciate umpires can have bad games too. Well they realize it but accept is a different thing. Where the teams star player goes 0-4 that's okay. An umpire's accuracy falls below say 90% they're all over you.

But the important thing when you're having an off game is just to slow things down don't let it get to you and start up taking baby steps like you mentioned.

It is a horrible feeling to know as an umpire you're having an off day. But we just have to push through it.

[Mike Prince]

ukce - had a game exactly like yours on Sunday. 1st round of 11/12 4-team tournament, #1 against #4 seed. A player's dad from the lower seeded team was all over me - I called his son out on a 3-2 pitch on the inside corner and then in the next inning he disagreed loudly with several called balls that were off the plate but probably looked good from his seat on the 3B line (of course it helped that his son was also pitching). Instead of getting rattled I did the same thing as you did - "one pitch, one ball, one strike, one out, one inning at a time". It didn't calm down the dad in the stands, but I did the second game and the championship behind the plate as well that day and was definitely in "the zone" for those, the first game helped me make sure I was focused.

The best thing we can do is put a bad game/day behind us (or block out the whining from the other side of the fence), learn what we can from it and move on to the next one.

[mstaylor]

One of the best thing I was told early in my HS career was knowing when you have a bad game is the important part, not knowing will get you a steady diet of JV. Study what you did wrong and fix it for the next time.

[Fittske24]

99% of all bad plate games can be associated one way or another with bad timing. Your mind has a split second to make a decesion then tell the bosy to preform the action. If your too quick, your mind and body start acting in unison. Before you know it, you start calling pitches strikes that you know were balls after you "reviewd" the pitch over in your mind.

If you know you have solid mechanics but you find yourself missing pitches, slow yourself waaaaay down. See the pitch all the way to the glove, call it to yourself then call it out loud. This helps me no matter what level I do from 12 year old's to college.

[grayhawk]

I was at a MLB clinic last weekend and Randy Marsh was talking to us as a group about timing. He said to give yourself enough time in your mind to say:

On a strike: "That was a good pitch." STRIKE!

On a ball: "That was a ball." BALL.

Seems like a good mental exercise to slow down. There are many times that I have had to tell myself to slow down, to watch the pitch all the way into the glove. I find that when I really buckle down and do that, I also stay "locked in" much better and am much less likely to flinch when the pitch is coming right at my face.

Umpiring is a fantastic test of one's focus and concentration, isn't it?

[Thunderheads]

Umpiring is a fantastic test of one's focus and concentration, isn't it?

It sure is ...and MOST people have no idea how much it takes to ump a good game!:yippie:

[mstaylor]

It sure is ...and MOST people have no idea how much it takes to ump a good game!

That is why my wife does not watch me work, she gets mad at the idiot fans. She knows what kind of time I put into training myself and others so she has no patience for the knuckleheads.

[Stan W.]

My best event of 2010 was not on the field but in the classroom. As, many know, I am an umpire trainer and rules interpreter for my local NFHS chapter. We have run a NFHS class to prepare students to take the NFHS exam....

This year we had a very small class and I had one student that was very eager to pass the exam. He had been umpiring in the youth leagues for a number of years with moderate success . He has a learning disability...Nothing impaired mentally, just an issue of how he learns and a large dose of testing anxiety..

He never missed a class, was never lazy or distracted, asked wayyyyyyy more questions than I ever thought possible....he has a passion for umpiring and almost kid like...his question being answered..... his next one was why?...we worked overtime to get him ready to take the exam…

On a Tuesday night when I was preparing to do my rules presentation for the NFHS chapter guess who is sitting in the front row, but my student who has PASSED his exam wearing his BRAND NEW HS jacket.....

Im not sure of how many HS games he will do, he has a job at the local hospital that doesnt get him available until 5 or so....But earning the patch was his goal....and he did it...

I heard after the meeting that he had attempted to pass the exam 8 times prior to taking our class.....I’m pretty proud of him..... I have put a lot of candidates through the class and I have always been proud that they passed.....

Its been easy to teach the gifted

Its been easy to teach the experienced

Its been rewarding to teach the challenged..

But now with this young man passing the exam.......I feel like I can rightfully call myself an Umpire Instructor....and that is my top moment of 2010

[Mr Umpire]

All of my good/bad moments on the field begin with the beginning of the game: I get to walk out on the field to call another game.

All that occurs begins with that moment. I get better every time I go onto the field. The more I am on it, the better things are. Nothing happens without that moment. The day it can't happen will be my worst moment.

So while I don't limit my experiences down to one particular moment, I get to tell of the one that happens every game.

[moblue]

I was working a regional Babe Ruth softball tournament as BU with R1. R1 left the base as soon as she could. BR swung and put the ball slightly behind 2B on a pop-up. It fell untouched as R1 was in the vacinity of 2B. R1 headed for 3rd and was on her way there when one of the fielders threw the ball to F5. F5 missed and the ball hit the fence, then ricocheted into the dugout. I ruled deadball and put R1 on 3rd.

I was the only one that thought I was right. I knew the base award was 2 bases from TOP. Two other umpires that day (one was the UIC of the tourney, the other was UIC of the Cal Ripken baseball league I work in) both told me that the base award should have been "the base the runner is going to plus one." I read them the rule from the book later, and both still disagreed with me.:2cents:

[mstaylor]

1+1 Where do they get theses guys. When the rule is presented in black and white they want to stick to BS rules myths. I would tell them that you showed them your proof, let's see yours. Let them try and find 1+1 in the book.