I'm curious to know what levels of softball use 3-umpire mechanics on a consistent basis. High school has 3-umpire mechanics in the manual, unless I'm mistaken, but high school umpires only use 3 umpires in the playoffs. Junior college is the same way,
AFAIK, because the camps that umpires go to to get into are all 2-umpire camps.
Do the lower NCAA divisions use 3 umpires for regular season games? If so, I might try to continue my softball umpire career at that level. Do any USA Softball events or other travel tournaments use 3 umpires?
It would be interesting to actually get consistent 3-umpire experience, because each of the 3 umpires has equal responsibilities with the others (U1 and U3 make fair-foul and catch-no catch decisions on the lines from the front edge of their respective base, they also have catch-no catch responsibilities, and they perform rotations, in addition to making calls on baserunners.), instead of the lone 1st base umpire being a glorified rabbit who just calls safe and out (with the occasional chase of a trouble ball from A position) and the plate umpire having the lion's share of the calls (all catch-no catch, most fair-foul (some plate umpires usurp all fair-foul responsibilities), calls on runners at 3rd base, and balls and strikes) in the 2-umpire system.