|
The umpire with the tag-up responsibility should NEVER, NEVER be looking for the other umpire to make a signal, but at the ball for first contact. An umpire's signal has absolutely NO bearing on when a runner may leave the base.
In our group here, the PU is taught to raise their arm on the touch of the fly ball, and complete the out signal on the catch. So, in our case, when the arm starts going up, the BU knows the runner may leave.
Even in our state ASA clinics ( of which I haven't gone to in 3 years now ) they told us the BU should not be watching the ball in flight. Their attention should be in the infield. The PU's concerns are in the outfield. Of course, as Mike stated, a lot of ways work, you just have to cover them in your pregame and be on the same page. If my partner and I do the tag ups the same way, our way works fine. If not, there isn't a system out there that's gonna work. Unless you use solo mechanics.
What stinks is when you go over your pregame mechanics, agree on the way to do things and then your partner goes off in another world and doesn't do anything like what was discussed. I don't care how we do things, as long as we agree on how to do it. About the only thing I refuse to do is college mechanics in ASA or Fed ball. A lot of the guys wanna do it that way, which is fine. In college games. If I'm enforcing ASA rules, I'm using ASA mechanics.
__________________
Rick
|