Officially starting my little league umpire journey tomorrow

[Velho]

10 minutes ago, orangebird said:

Encountered the final boss of weird local rules tonight

That’s some cricket stuff right there

[The Man in Blue]

[834k3r]

On 5/30/2025 at 5:40 PM, orangebird said:

Encountered the final boss of weird local rules tonight

This seemingly exists to game the no new inning rules and sure enough, it came up in my game! The coach warned me in advance he wanted to do this, I admitted I had no idea how that rule worked and they seemingly were able to summon the commish on-site to confirm they had everything correct. Wasn't really an incident, no one argued or raised their voice but that really made me understand why this website doesn't like local rules lmfao.

[Jay R.]

On 5/30/2025 at 8:40 PM, orangebird said:

Encountered the final boss of weird local rules tonight

This seemingly exists to game the no new inning rules and sure enough, it came up in my game! The coach warned me in advance he wanted to do this, I admitted I had no idea how that rule worked and they seemingly were able to summon the commish on-site to confirm they had everything correct. Wasn't really an incident, no one argued or raised their voice but that really made me understand why this website doesn't like local rules lmfao.

I actually don't hate this. Time limits mess with the game in weird ways (notably by reverting to last completed inning if you hit a drop-dead time) and this seems like a reasonable way out of it.

Also, it allows a team that's up big in a non-mercy situation to end it.

[The Man in Blue]

On 6/2/2025 at 10:41 PM, Jay R. said:

I actually don't hate this. Time limits mess with the game in weird ways (notably by reverting to last completed inning if you hit a drop-dead time) and this seems like a reasonable way out of it.

Also, it allows a team that's up big in a non-mercy situation to end it.

When you put it that way . . . I have long been an advocate in tournament ball that the mercy rules should apply immediately when the time expires.  So many hours of tournaments running behind due to a coin toss that went the wrong way . . . 

Timer goes off:  1.) If somebody is up by the mercy rule, game over immediately.  You had 75/90/120 minutes and look at what you did with it.  We don't need to screw around for another 25 minutes to change pitchers, give countless signs, make the infield aware of the situation, try for the third time to figure out courtesy runners, etc.  2.) If the score is within the mercy rule, finish the inning.

I've also never understood why teams want to waste pitchers and energy on garbage innings.  This isn't fantasy football.  Championships are not won in garbage time.

[BLWizzRanger]

Oh, come on. This sort of seems like calling a timeout when the catcher wants to step in front of the plate to give signals.  The defense has the advantage there and it is advised not to give time.

If they knew the rules they could just have the batter bunt the ball while a foot is out of the box or on the plate. They get the three outs via the rule book, some time is wasted for the defensive team, and if the offense was gaming the inning to allow the top of the order to start the next inning, well, that is affected as well.

[Umpy]

It definitely has the "this rule was created to solve a specific issue and we have not play tested it to see how it will be gamed" feel to it.

To accommodate a child that was able to bat but no longer able to run due to an operation on his leg my league adopted what they called an "Adaptive Runner" rule that had a runner start at an orange cone 60 feet past first base on the foul line, the runner would run to the orange bag double base as soon as the batter hit the ball (the batter stayed in the box).  Halfway through the season the rule had to evolve because the "Adaptive Runner" was doing things like leaving early, starting with his back foot on the cone to be closer to 1st base, and launching after every pitch regardless if the batter swung; the batter the rule was made to accommodate was hitting something like .800

I was involved in the initial concept of the rule but coming up with rules is hard, its tough not to leave a loophole in there to be abused once the competitive juices get flowing.

 

Now that I write it out this may actually be up there with the final boss of weird local rules, I am part of the problem.

[Velho]

7 minutes ago, Umpy said:

the batter the rule was made to accommodate was hitting something like .800

Sounds to me you figured out how to make every kid a HOFer 😉

[The Man in Blue]

I thought every kid already was.  At least, that's what their parents and coaches tell us.

[Umpy]

To be fair to the kid, he was pretty consistently hitting the ball to the outfield, if his leg was still healthy he probably would have still had insane stats.  If his leg was still healthy though I'd bet he'd have been playing in a higher level.

[orangebird]

I'll give more details on Sunday or Monday once I finish but I have my first travel tournament with kids pitching and it's a two-day format where day two the teams are seeded based on how they did in a 4-team pod. Tomorrow I'll have the teams who finished fourth today.

Place your bets now, will the parents/coaches be

1. Pretty chill, just happy their kids are getting two more chances at winning at least one game

2. Very cranky, knowing that they're staring down a 1-3 or 0-4 weekend  

[BLWizzRanger]

23 minutes ago, orangebird said:

I'll give more details on Sunday or Monday once I finish but I have my first travel tournament with kids pitching and it's a two-day format where day two the teams are seeded based on how they did in a 4-team pod. Tomorrow I'll have the teams who finished fourth today.

Place your bets now, will the parents/coaches be

1. Pretty chill, just happy their kids are getting two more chances at winning at least one game

2. Very cranky, knowing that they're staring down a 1-3 or 0-4 weekend  

I vote for dueling loud speaker blaring music that can be heard in three counties so that they can have walk up songs and batter announcements.

[orangebird]

Alright well I kinda spoiled myself already but I checked off a pretty major milestone by working my first travel tournament that wasn't machine pitch lol 

I was kinda surprised to even get this particular assignment, which is the real fun part. I reached out to my county's HS org like a month ago, explained my situation and just asked for more details about how everything works there with zero assumption they'd have me work games before next year. But sure enough they put in their Arbiter, I got assigned some games, I called the assignor to make sure he was aware of my qualifications (or lack thereof) and he thought I could handle u13 travel so I got myself a pair of weekend doubleheaders.

Anyways, time for some bullet points

• I was very glad to get some reps working base, given that my rec ball tenure had included literally one base assignment and it was my very first game lol. The 90-foot diamonds didn't feel that huge to me and I don't think there were any bang-bang plays I thought I missed because I had a bad angle, which is about all I can ask for.
  • I also like that working base allows for a modest amount of small talk with the 1B coaches, one of the games I worked wound up being the travel team for one of my rec ball leagues, so I chatted with him about already being familiar with them, told him where I went to HS and asked if anyone on his team is also going there (seemingly no, lame), etc
  • However...a lack of reps working base does mean I had not even the faintest clue what the signals were. My rec ball training might've covered them, but I've worked like 85% of my games solo on 60-foot diamonds so it's not like I got the chance to regularly practice them. Both of my partners were understanding of my situation and none of my games felt like we had a close call with someone wildly out of position, so that's a bullet dodged!
  • Both of my games were base first, plate second and folks let me tell you...I really prefer putting on my gear at home instead in a school hallway or grass parking lot. Going forward if I get any more doubleheaders I think I'll ask to take plate first.
• The higher quality of play meant I saw a ton of stuff I've never seen rec kids pull off
  • Back-to-back inside the park homers! They actually had social media stuff for this tournament and I looked, one was a missed diving catch but the other was just crushing the ball over the CF's head and running like hell afterwards. 
  • Multiple normal homers! The machine pitch tournament had some homers with a temporary fence but these were honest to God real homers over a real fence. 
    • This included a deeply funny sequence where a kid got IBB'd and the next kid then homered. The next time they decided to pitch him and he homered. Lose-lose situation! (The tournament somehow managed to put an org's A-team and B-team in the same game so I think the IBB was a tongue-in-cheek show of respect more than a serious decision)
  • A 7-to-3 force out! Just a smoked liner that fell in right in front of the LF, fired a laser to first, BR out by a step or two.
  • Honest to God breaking balls! Saw a handful of curves and a couple nasty sliders. It seemed like the kids would throw a breaking ball about 1 in every 10-15 pitches, which I'd assume makes sense to not having Tommy John before you graduate middle school.
  • Saving the best for last: a 13-year-old throwing 80! I was pretty jumpy the first inning but once I saw he had decent control and wasn't regularly throwing high and inside (because he'd probably kill someone if he did lmfao) I settled in but that kid confirmed it's time to upgrade on my Champro starter kit gear lmfao. I have not even the faintest idea if I called a good zone for him because I had not even a hint of experience seeing that kind of velocity but no one seemed to be upset about the zone so I'll take the win there.
    • I do have a thigh bruise from a pitch he bounced but given that my gear was bought for rec 10-year-olds and not 13-year-olds throwing 80, I'll happily take that as my only wound.
• My first game behind the plate, my zone was definitely a bit too tight. I think I was giving the kids a bit too much credit for their ability to perfectly hit the spots. 13u travel is better than 10u rec, but they're still middle schoolers getting used to 90-foot diamonds and 60-foot mounds. Definitely wasn't a walk fest, but it seemed like both dugouts were surprised by some of my balls, especially on the outside. Second game I cleaned it up and I felt good about my zone for the team that didn't have a kid already throwing 80 mph.
• The HS org also does college stuff so they want us to dress like the college umps, so I now have the black/gray Smitty that the NCAA umps wear. Definitely made me feel a bit more fancy than the navy/red/white. 
• The first doubleheader was at a very nice Catholic private high school in the Baltimore suburbs so I got to work on a turf field for the first time and talked to their head coach/manager a decent bit (he was there just to supervise the field haha). Can't imagine I'll get many chances to just randomly talk to a HS coach about my zone in a game he watched as a neutral, so that was a very neat interaction. 

Overall I had a pretty nice time. I learnt that u13 still requires quite a bit of zone leeway, largely had pretty cordial coaches and fans and at 90 dollars per game it was also my largest game checks of the year so that's a fun bonus too!

[ousafe]

1 hour ago, orangebird said:

I do have a thigh bruise

I highly recommend ThighPro.

[834k3r]

1 hour ago, orangebird said:

I had not even the faintest clue what the signals were.

This is why pre-game discussions/meetings with the other member(s) of your crew are important. Even when the crew all know the signals, there are variations on what signals are used. IFF is a perfect example:  I work pretty regularly who puts his hand in front of his face for IFF with no outs, and points straight up with both hands on either side of his head for IFF with one out. On the other hand (no pun intended) I'm a finger-to-the-brim-of-the-hat guy.

1 hour ago, orangebird said:

I really prefer putting on my gear at home instead in a school hallway or grass parking lot.

This used to bother me too, but the last couple of years I wear HeatGear tights to the game under my street clothes. Not only does it make changing in a parking lot no longer embarrassing, but it keeps a lot of the sweat off my shin guards (thereby reducing the stink).

2 hours ago, orangebird said:

Saw a handful of curves and a couple nasty sliders.

This is where you have to have good timing. Don't call the pitches too early. A pitch that looks outside or inside could break on you and hit the zone--and if you call it too early you'll have both dugouts chirping at you (example:  the PU in my son's college showcase tournament this past weekend).

2 hours ago, orangebird said:

Saving the best for last: a 13-year-old throwing 80! I was pretty jumpy the first inning

This is why most of us on this board invest in as good a gear as we can get. Stay in the slot, and keep your eyes open. You flinch, you could miss a swing. Trust your gear. You're going to get hit, and at some point it's going to hurt--but proper gear and proper positioning minimizes this to a high degree. But after you get hit, you need to get back in there and not flinch or dodge out of the way.

57 minutes ago, ousafe said:

I highly recommend ThighPro.

Also this, 💯

[Umpy]

3 hours ago, 834k3r said:

6 hours ago, orangebird said:

I had not even the faintest clue what the signals were.

This is why pre-game discussions/meetings with the other member(s) of your crew are important.

Or a between innings meeting(s) when your partner didn't roll up to the field until halfway through the plate meeting.  Better to review signals late than not at all!

[834k3r]

5 minutes ago, Umpy said:

Or a between innings meeting(s) when your partner didn't roll up to the field until halfway through the plate meeting.  Better to review signals late than not at all!

Truth.

[orangebird]

Got my first fall ball game of the season tomorrow, so I think it's time to blow the dust off this thread.

Well, I didn't end up doing any umpiring for the rest of the summer and I think I made a reasonable decision.

I had a couple orgs I could've done it with, but the more I thought about it, the more I believed I would've felt way more comfortable working a summer of travel after I got proper training that was meant for adults, not middle schoolers handling u10 rec. I'm aware that working the High Heat Classic Memorial Invitational Tournament Jamboree for two months would've given me plenty of on-the-job training, but I didn't want to feel like I blew a call, or got caught totally out of position, etc because my training was "what is obstruction?" and not something much more detailed. 

Also even if I thought I was more qualified, I think work-life balance, not stretching yourself too thin, etc is important too. An entire summer of doing doubleheaders with the intensity of travel in hot and humid weather I think probably would've worn me out and taking the summer off has made me feel pretty refreshed and excited for fall ball. A nice break never hurts, y'know?

I'm sure some of you may disagree and maybe I'll regret not having the reps at some point, but for now I think I made a reasonable decision to not push myself further than what I'm comfortable with at this point. I'm still fully interested in trying to work HS next year, but I think sticking to rec for this year is the right decision for me.

[BigBlue4u]

4 hours ago, orangebird said:

I'm sure some of you may disagree and maybe I'll regret not having the reps at some point, but for now I think I made a reasonable decision to not push myself further than what I'm comfortable with at this point. I'm still fully interested in trying to work HS next year, but I think sticking to rec for this year is the right decision for me.

A reasonable decision?  That is a GREAT decision!  I've seen to many umpires burn themselves out, although sometimes because of financial necessity.  Absolutely do what you are comfortable with.  

[The Man in Blue]

9 hours ago, orangebird said:

I'm sure some of you may disagree and maybe I'll regret not having the reps at some point, but for now I think I made a reasonable decision to not push myself further than what I'm comfortable with at this point. I'm still fully interested in trying to work HS next year, but I think sticking to rec for this year is the right decision for me.

You go, Glen Coco!

This is the flip side of a conversation in another thread.  Follow your comfort and take the next steps when you are ready.  Pace yourself for a long career!

[orangebird]

Anyways while I do think sticking with rec will be good for me this year...I do look forward to hopefully just needing to memorize the NFHS book instead of dealing with local rules that include a very specific definition of when you can advance on an overthrow

[Velho]

15 hours ago, orangebird said:

How many eyes do umpires in this league have?

[BigBlue4u]

2 hours ago, Velho said:

How many eyes do umpires in this league have?

When you get a local rule like this, the best thing to do is go to whoever made the rule and ask them the purpose of the rule.  The answer will probably help you determine how you will enforce it.

[orangebird]

Did u10 softball for the first time. The kids really struggled to pitch, which I can forgive, but the real frustrating part was after every ball four it was coach pitch. This felt like a reasonable way to make sure every at-bat ended with the kid swinging and hopefully putting it in play.

One problem: there was no limit to how many times they could take a pitch!

The amount of at-bats that included a kid just taking several pitches perfectly down the middle was absolutely brutal for pace of play and there was no rule of something like "everyone gets 5 pitches, you don't put it in play by pitch 5, you're out" which I'm pretty sure one of my u10 baseball leagues has. No one is having fun or getting comfortable hitting the ball if there's no incentive for them to swing!

We hit no new inning after the top of the third and the coaches just agreed to not even bother with the bottom of the third.

So yeah, I don't mind local rules, but that one could reaaaally use some fine-tuning 

[BigBlue4u]

9 hours ago, orangebird said:

One problem: there was no limit to how many times they could take a pitch!

Here's a solution.  Each team uses one of its own players to pitch.  The batter gets ONE pitch.  He either gets on bae, or he's out.