[Carl Childress]

I would like to answer a few questions regarding the BRD.

1. “Probably the interpretations Carl reports are just ‘opinion’ of the PBUC and not official interpretations.”

ANSWER: They are, indeed, opinions, official opinions of the field supervisor, evaluators, and staff of minor league baseball. They apply with great force in professional baseball and with equal force in those leagues where the PBUC umpire manual is used. (The NAPBL manual is no more, having been replaced by the newer model.)

2. “Why would they give the interpretations to Carl and not the rest of us?”

ANSWER: As someone pointed out, for a time Jim Booth at eteamz received direct interpretations from Cris Jones of the PBUC. Booth lamented recently that no one now replies to his messages. I know from published emails that Jim spent time “debating” the interpretations he received. When his perception of the situation differed from their reply, he always fired back an alternative view. That’s not what I do with the BRD. Each day the PBUC gets hundreds of emails asking for interpretations. Most of those can be answered directly from the OBR or the published umpire’s manual. The staff have many, many more important duties to perform than answering the questions of umpires of amateur games. They do not think “amateur” baseball. For example, the average turnaround for one of my questions is about four weeks! Morever, suppose Mike Fitzpatrick did give an interpretation to an “unknown commodity.” How can he be sure it will be reported correctly? How does he know where it will be reported? On the other hand, the BRD is well-known. For 15 years I have been reporting first BUD and then PBUC interpretations without prejudice, regardless of my own opinion. They know I report what they say. Two recent rulings illustrate that: They overturned the 1976 Bremigan ruling about removing a force. They overturned the 1986 Brinkman ruling about a ball passing an infielder. I don’t agree with either decision. That will not affect how I report their rulings.

3. “How come the BRD gets so many interpretations that don’t appear elsewhere?”

ANSWER: Many of the points not covered that I ask about would come up once a generation in a professional game. As I’ve said repeatedly, umpires of amateur games have to be far better at the rules than the professional umpire. He gets obstruction once every lustrum; we get it perhaps once a season. The BRD is a convenient and trustworthy repository for those interpretations that have been made, essentially, for amateur leagues.

4. “What about the NCAA and FED? Where do those interpretations come from?”

ANSWER: The NCAA relationship goes back even farther than that of the BUD, back to Don Edwards in the first edition (1981-82). After that came Bill Thurston, who was always willing to provide an official interpretation. Since I authored scores of NCAA rules, most of which were adopted and all of which were designed to harmonize NCAA with OBR, Thurston became quite comfortable dealing with the BRD. Just this last week by email and telephone, Rich Fetchiet assured me that though the Thurston era was over, the “era of good feeling” was not. The BRD would continue to get official interpretations from the NCAA. As most know, the NHFS does not offer official interpretations to individuals, only state organizations. But they publish their new interps in the Quarterly and on the Internet, so that’s no problem.

5. “How can Childress quote the General Instructions (GI) in the BRD and yet denigrate them here on the Forum?”

ANSWER: I’m sure that every poll of coaches will show their number one buzz word is “consistency.” The aim of the BRD is to achieve that insofar as is possible. Umpires have four ways to handle “points not covered”: (1) precedent; (2) analogy; (3) authoritative opinion; (4) official interpretation. An umpire who knows how a top dog in his association treated a given play can apply that ruling in his game and — consistency. If something happens in your fED game and you can’t find a rule, use one from another book (analogy). At least you have some written documentation somewhere to bring to your defense. Authoritative opinion and official interpretations speak for themselves. The BRD has official interpretations from Rumble, Thurston, Deary, Jones, Fitzpatrick, the PBUC minor league staff, and the Instructions to the National League umpries. It includes materials from the FED and OBR case books. You’ll find authoritative opinion from McNeely, Bremigan, Brinkman, Jaksa, Roder, Evans, Wendelstedt, and Winters. You’ll even find two references to the “General Instructions.”

I find it interesting that someone will argue the GI “requires” them to get the call correct and yet would, I know, argue that the umpire should not take his rule book onto the field. It is again the fact that the message I bring in the BRD is not the problem; it’s simply the fact that I bring it.

[Edited by Carl Childress on Feb 18th, 2001 at 09:31 PM]