Umpire as a translator for another umpire

[beerguy55]

Not sure how often you would see this in the US - I know of a situation in Quebec.  At the plate meeting PU says to HC's before the game that the BU is French, knows English, but is not strong in it. In this case both teams are from Western Canada with no French speaking coaches (the further west you get, the less likely you are to find bilingual people, and the less likely you are to find it a requirement)

PU is strong in both languages and offers to translate any conversations that are had with BU, just to be safe, and says he will come over for any conversation with BU.

So, later in the game BU calls R2 out for interference on a ground ball to F6, where F6 bobbled it, allowing all runners to arrive safely.  HC asks to talk to BU and PU comes over to translate.  HC argues that R2 stopped, let the ball go by, and then ran, and the fielder was at least three paces behind the ball as the runner went by - nowhere close to being able to be interfered with - F6 just missed the ball.   BU says that from his angle (which is directly behind F6) R2 stopped due to contact, or, if not contact, close enough to impact F6's ability to make the play, causing F6 to make the error.  HC argues the ump couldn't possibly see that from his angle  Umps talk back and forth in French, R2 is ruled out and game continues on.

In between innings, the PU says to HC that in his opinion there was no interference.  HC jaw drops.  He asks, "then what was the point of the discussion we had?  YOu were part of the discussion...you even spoke to the ump after I was done talking?"  PU says "you didn't ask my partner to ask for help".   HC acknowledges this, but simply says, "I argued that the umpire had a bad angle...I assumed at that point you and he would have discussed that...I assumed you guys were actually discussing that before making the final ruling."

HC told me this story - I did say to him I saw the umpire's point.  You didn't ask BU to get help...technically..."could we at least ask his opinion since he's here?" would probably have sufficed.  So, I said lesson learned was not to assume anything, and make sure you're explicit in your requests.  But, I also think at some point common sense has to prevail.  The PU, even if for a different reason, was part of the conversation, and it's clear the HC was arguing that the BU wasn't in a good position to make the call.

Have you ever had this type of scenario?  How would you handle it?  I'm thinking if you're making the offer to translate I think you need to make it clear that that is the limit of your role.  I can see why a coach would make the assumption that since the second umpire is now part of the conversation that any appeal/request for help is implied (right, wrong or indifferent).   Otherwise, PU is translating an argument of a judgment call, which is supposed to be against the rules.

This is softball - relevant only to explain why BU is behind F6.

[Rich Ives]

48 minutes ago, beerguy55 said:

 

In between innings, the PU says to HC that in his opinion there was no interference. 

REALLY?! He invited trouble. He got it.

[udbrky]

Did he yell out "mise en garde!" before shoving his partner under the bus?

[stevis]

The big issue here is the umpire who threw his partner sous le bus in a language his partner didn't speak.  Geez.

But no, were I able to translate and doing so, I would not volunteer anything unless asked specifically as an umpire by my partner. 

The tricky part would be resisting the urge to add on to the translation.  "He said there was no way that was interference, and that your mother is a favorite of the sailors."

[CJK]

16 hours ago, beerguy55 said:

In between innings, the PU says to HC that in his opinion there was no interference.

This is inappropriate regardless of any other factor.