"....all the close calls....."

[Thunderheads]

18u wood bat, fall ball. Pretty decent stuff....nothing great, but pretty decent.

Sunday double-headers, ... game 1 I'm on the bases ....

Well this game starts out with a bang! I'm bustin' my hump all over the place (as usual, but the plays have me hustlin'!)

1) R2, ground ball to F6....he fires to first for the out, and R2 breaks for 3rd ...throw brings F5 up the line a touch but still on the 2nd base side of 3rd, ..I pivot, make an adjustment step toward the line (to the right) and see the sweep tag misses ... "safe, safe, no tag!" "Good call!" from the offense dugout

2) No out, none on.... ground ball between F3 and F4.... F3 gets it and preps to toss to F1 coming to cover ....F1 has made a funny route to first, gets the ball cleanly and beats BR to the bag, but misses first to the inside by about 2 inches ..... "no, no, safe, he missed the bag!" (nothing from anyone except F1 raises his head in disgust w/ himself).

3) Ground ball to short, .... bobbles .....regains, fires and a SLAMMIN' BANGER for the out .... "GOT 'EM!!!" followed by a big step and a round about punch...

Again .... nothing

Between innings standing in shallow right field from the defense dugout (the team the above plays happened to) .... " I guess all the close calls are going to go against me today!!" Loud enough for almost everyone to hear! In a millisecond I think .... are you $hi++ing me??? And out of my mouth comes " It's working out that way so far Gary!" (very unlike me!)

Get this, ....turns out that on the play where the pitcher missed first on the cover, Gary (the coach of the team these plays happened to) had told the first base coach for the home team (a guy I work with) that ...."any good umpire is going to call that play an out to protect the pitcher" .......... Well, we all had a good laugh ....

That following half inning ......... Gary's team has a VERY similar play from F6 .... SUPER BANGER again! "GOT 'EM!!" same roundabout punch out ....BUT THIS TIME,...I move just to the left and get Gary's eye in the dugout, ...put my hands out, and say "better?" Gary nods and gives me the thumbs up

After that, the game just officiated itself and with me on the dish on game 2, ..there was nothing either .....

I love it when I get the close ones,... I had NO doubts I got them ..... but it's when a coach complains about calls I know I nailed that makes me crazy! :crazy:

[JaxRolo]

Good Job.

I worked 8 games this weekend and had tons of close calls as well.

The first one was very close but I ran the replay in my head and confirmed I got it right!

[mstaylor]

I usually tell that some days it just works that way.