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Old Wed Jan 24, 2018, 09:51pm
IRISHMAFIA IRISHMAFIA is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by teebob21 View Post
Where should I start with bringing a brand new umpire into the game? When I saw brand new, I specifically mean my daughter, who will be 13 this summer. She used to play, but after a couple too many HBP's and a ground-ball bad hop to the face, she no longer does. We've worked a handful of games together with her on the bases, and her improvement game by game has been amazing. I registered her with USA Softball this year.

I started when I was 14...and I knew nothing about softball beyond out/safe, fair/foul, and ball/strike. I know (now) what I had wish I had been taught in my early years, especially the pitching rules which I didn't fully understand until my 3rd or 4th year. I'll cover that with her early.

Where would you all start when training a completely green, young official?

This is hard, but if her game is going to be USA for now, I would go out of my way to not include any other rule sets. Eliminates any confusion of which rule applies in a particular game. I've always suggested a new umpire pick a game to concentrate solely on that game to one set of rules down the first year and then move on to other games/rule sets the following year or when s/he is comfortable in doing so.
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