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Just a late observation.
If you work at the pro level, you know that a coach (a guy who actually coaches a position) never argues a play. The manager/skipper takes care of that business. You call skippy "coach" and your face will be full of Levi before you can blink an eye. Likewise, the umpire isn't any particular color(blue, black, navy, red, cream, dazzle, etc. He puts his shoes, socks, pants, etc on the same way and happens to have a name. So, if the only way you are going to show respect for someone is to preface their name with coach or mr, you're not showing them much respect at all.
However, we aren't working the pro level and most of the coaches & umpires at the lower levels don't understand the customes of the real "Professionals." Plus, I can't read booger holler high's roster on the internet to learn the names of the guys I'm going to be dealing with. With that said, if I don't know a coaches name, I may call him coach or skip but make no mistake about it, he will NOT tell me what I CAN or CAN'T call him because there are a lot of things I CAN and WON'T call him. I don't like being called blue. I am a person and want to be treated like one but I understand that they may not know my name as well. Thus, I'm not going to tell a coach or player what to call me. I may say "You can call me Mark." I'm darn sure not going to say "You call me MR. Chapman." We're all adults. Even the teens are young adults. There are more ways to show respect than how one address anothers name.
Addressing the Pitchers Plate: What's wrong with "Hey Mark (or ump) we can't tell if the pitchers on the rubber. Would it be a problem to dust it off a bit?" Give him the opportunity to say sure I'll take care of it, go right ahead, or I'll let you know when he's not on the rubber.
As far as the comment about the call: What is being accomlished? I get tired of coaches coming out and saying no he was safe. Makes me want to say "Oh, well what do you need me here for?" I tell coaches in the pregame if they have a question about a call to request time and come ask. Notice I said ask. When a coach approaches me respectfully he gets treated respectfully. Such as:
Coach: "No Mark, that's wrong!!!"
Me: "Sit down!!! We're not talking judgement!!!"
or
Coach: "Mark, what did you have there???"
Me: "This is how I saw it...!!!"
He may still disagree with the outcome but there is no humanly way possible that he can argue what I saw and if I need to, I'll remind him of that!
I can be as big of a red __S as anyone if you put me in that position and I can be the most pleasant person around if you'll let me. Guess which one works out best for everyone involved???
As far as asst coaches go, I'll listen to them depending on the situation. If it's something that needs to be deferred to the head coach, I'll let him know. However, if I do take the time to give an explanation to an asst and the head guy comes out after the discussion, he gets to do an about face and gets nothing. If he says "I'm the head coach and you have to talk to me", I say "You had no business letting the asst do your work for you. He will be more than glad to explain to you what I told him."
It just takes one warning and don't forget that warnings come in a varity of forms. They don't have to be notarized.
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