Why I have an indicator in my hand in 2 man on the bases and in my pocket in 3 man and 4 man.

[Jimurray]

And maybe MLB backed off requiring the PU to use an indicator

[ousafe]

I was instructed by my association to never ever ever have an indicator on the bases.  

[Jimurray]

1 hour ago, ousafe said:

I was instructed by my association to never ever ever have an indicator on the bases.  

If you keep the count that shouldn’t be a problem. 

[LRZ]

But if you lose the count, that could be a problem.

[johnnyg08]

11 hours ago, Jimurray said:

And maybe MLB backed off requiring the PU to use an indicator

So one count mishap in maybe 75,000 at bats and that justifies doing something that we're instructed to not do? 

It happens. None of us like it when it happens, but it's not that big of a deal. 

[Jimurray]

11 minutes ago, johnnyg08 said:

So one count mishap in maybe 75,000 at bats and that justifies doing something that we're instructed to not do? 

It happens. None of us like it when it happens, but it's not that big of a deal. 

Actually I thought that MLB plate umps were instructed to use an indicator. But yes, I need to use an indicator even if instructed not to. 

[SeeingEyeDog]

My partner and I have lost the count a time or two. I check with the home team scorekeeper, get the count, thank them and we move on.

I usually approach them after the game, thank them again and make a joke about "sending an invoice to our association" which never fails to send everyone home smiling...

~Dog

[MadMax]

On 9/19/2020 at 12:16 AM, ousafe said:

I was instructed by my association to never ever ever have an indicator on the bases.

Even if one of the other three on that MLB crew had an indicator in his pocket, they’re still going to go to New York on the headset. Because money is involved (somewhere), the provision is that any loss / question of the count that the PU cannot resolve, it goes to the replay suite. 

“New York, Hello!”

[wolfe_man]

I'm not in big-boy (college, MiLB) ball like some of you guys, but in NFHS in Ohio (and Legion, Babe Ruth, Tourney's, etc.) we're asked to have one and I always have mine with me.

My biggest problem is I seem to keep getting partners who don't give consistent counts and the scoreboard is never right (if there at all), so if I didn't have my indicator I'd have no true idea what the count was. 

Edit: I know I am keeping track in my head, but I'm also doing other things and I don't want to make a mistake (I am aware it's PU responsibility to keep count also).

[Scissors]

I was in a zoom call with Jordan Baker over the winter and he mentioned that he doesn't use an indicator. I've seen him take it out before an AB and then just put it in the ballbag, so that probably contributed to this.

[noumpere]

54 minutes ago, wolfe_man said:

 and the scoreboard is never right (if there at all),

If they can't keep it correctly, have them turn it off.

[ArchAngel72]

sorry did not realize this was in the big boy section.. disregard 

 

[beerguy55]

Frankly, it's bad enough when two (or more) umpires don't know what the count is, or how many outs there are...I'm not sure if it's worse knowing they are all holding indicators with the wrong information...or if they're not using indicators at all.  The fact is, it happens in both scenarios.

Though indicators do help there is a mountain of cases where  the person holding an indicator still gets it wrong - if you start depending on it, it might detract from your situational awareness/engagement.

Checked swings, stolen bases and passed balls/wild pitches seem to be the common case where umps forget to update the indicator, or lose count.   If the ump gets distracted on a single pitch it doesn't matter if they have an indicator or not...they have forgotten to track/count that pitch.

Had one scenario where with bases loaded, pitcher throws two balls, coach asks for time and settles pitcher down, pitcher throws two more balls, batter goes to first and all runners advance, and then PU says "wait a minute, it's only 2-0"...after I reminded him it was 2-0 when the coach called time PU went out to discuss with BU, and they decided that no, everybody else on the field was crazy, the count is 2-0 (and returned runners too).   Holding an indicator doesn't solve that problem.

On 9/22/2020 at 8:40 AM, ArchAngel72 said:

LL if 2 man or more there is usually one of us out there with an indicator.

One of the odd things I saw this year was a crew that had worked together a lot. One of the guy no indicator but he flashed the count to the PU waving it every pitch across his abdomen. 

Ok I get it your helping the PU but to me it seemed odd.  To note too I did not think the PU was giving the count enough too. But that is a different concern

 

I've seen this many times at the amateur level - I just assumed it was the BU confirming that he and PU were on the same page....usually after some event that distracted from the flow of the at bat.

[Amarilloagain]

Happened again today in the Braves Marlin series.