[Carl Childress]

Originally posted by Striker991
Another reason I am not renewing my subscription to the paid part of this site...

I’m sorry you don’t plan to renew your subscription. At Officiating.com, we don’t have a “party line.” Each of our contributors is an independent contractor, just as they are when they accept assignments to umpire. Peter Osborne and Tim Stevens may disagree totally about a situation. We’ll provide both points of view to our readership. Disagreeing is healthy; being disagreeable isn’t.

One point Peter makes seem undeniable, and that is mechanics depend on the level of play and the situation. A two-man crew is always a crap shoot; you do the best you can to get to the best position possible. You do that by playing percentages. On that point you and he are in agreement in principle.

I understand you only do youth ball. That could mean you are primarily a small diamond umpire, and what Peter is advocating has little application to 60- or 70-foot bases. But sooner or later some assignor is going to see you call and — if your passion on the field is anything like your passion in the Forum — he’s going to want you to help him out in high school.

R1, left-handed pitcher, umpire in B. Lots of umpires will cheat closer to the mound to prepare for the pick-off play. Speedy R1, right-handed pitcher, umpire in B. Those same umpires likely will move closer to second, to prepare for the steal. It’s a matter of probabilities.

Umpires who don’t adjust to the level of play or the game situation are going against all conventional wisdom published by professional umpires and trainers. Take a look at the Gerry Davis tapes used in his umpire school. Their lesson is: Get where you need to be to make the best call. Don’t fall for anyone who says you can call a ball game just from thee working area.

After all, mechanics are merely a system of moving around the diamond so that umpires who don’t regularly work on the same crew can call together without stepping on each other’s toes. And mechanics change, evolve.

National League umpires for years straddled the foul line: They argued they got a better look at fair/foul down the line. American League umpires stood with both feet in foul territory: They argued that if they were hit by a ball, it was automatically foul.

For 40 years all umpires used the box, standing directly behind the catcher. Then, with the invention of the inside protector, some umpires adopted the slot. I used the box from 1954 to 2001. Now I teach only the slot — but only if the candidate adopts the Gerry Davis stance.

For the first seventeen years of my career, in a three-man crew, whenever a runner reached as far as second, the third-base umpire was in D. R1, R2? U1 in B, U3 in C. In 1972 a team of umpires in the International League developed most of our current system: If there’s a runner at first with a double play possible U1 remains at first. R1, R2: U1 in A, U3 in C. Even that’s changed. Now many associations tell U1: “Heck, you just stay in A.” R2, 2 out, U1 in A, U3 in B.

The major difference in opinion appears to be the definition of "anticipation." Here's what I wrote about that in Working the Bases, published and distributed by Gerry Davis Sports Education. (BTW: When I wrote that book, I still called from the box.)

One of the major blunders made by umpires of amateur games is anticipation, not of where the play might occur (that's good) but what the call might be (that's bad). You've seen that happen to your partner.

Play: R1 rolls slowly to short. F6 hustles in, picks up the ball, drops it, picks it up, and fires an off-balance throw to first. The runner is safe. Right? Except when the umpire reviews that play, he realizes that....

Heck, you might even have done that yourself. I have, as you'll find out. In the 1990 National Baseball Congress World Series, some umpires and I were sitting around discussing benefit of the doubt and other oddities, like, what a bounce does to the speed of a throw. "Remember," I intoned sagely and correctly, "when that ball hits the dirt, it's going to slow down." Everyone nodded solemnly.

That evening, in the marquee game, a throw from third bounced in the dirt just before B1 hit the bag. "Safe!" I screamed safely and solemnly -- and wrongly. Almost the instant I signaled safe, I knew B1 was out. When the defensive coach popped out of the dugout and arrived in the middle of my face, I realized I couldn't say: "But the ball bounced, so he should have been safe." I told the truth: "The runner was slower than I anticipated. Yell a little. Uh, not too much, though."

But anticipating the next play is as important a skill as the umpire can have.

Our goal at Officiating.com is never to tell any official how he should call, where he should stand. We think they should be exposed to many — and varied — ideas. That’s because we understand that in the long run each umpire will do what his association dictates.

When someone likes what we present in the magazine (in roughly seven sports), our hope is that he/she might help make a difference in the local association.

You seem to know what you want in an umpire. Put that into an article — and we’ll pay you for your ideas.