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In these kind of situations(judgement calls) here's how I think it should happen:
1) The umpire whose call it is makes the call first, according to what HE saw. After all that's why he's there in the first place.
2) If one of the managers/coaches thinks that the calling umpire missed the call because of bad angle, distance, etc. then that manager/coach asks the calling umpire to ask the other umpire who may have had a better angle, etc.
3) The calling umpire then has the option to either ask for help or not. If he does not ask for help that's it. The calling umpire trusts his own judgement, and that he got it right. However, if he does ask for help then in essence he is saying "From my perspective this is what I saw, but I realize that the other man had a better look. Therefore I am deferring to what he saw and how he judges the play."
This kind of sitch happened to me this season. Cal Ripken(OBR) league, R2 no outs. Small field so I'm in C behind and between 2B and F6. BR hits a slow tapper fair up 1B line. F1 fields the ball and tries to tag BR running by him instead of tossing to F3. Even though I'm 70-80' away from the play and have about the worst angle to the play in the entire park, it's my call. I replay the entire scene in my head stand slowly and signal safe because that's what I saw from my lousy perspective. I don't ask the PU to make the call in my stead, because that's not why I'm there. The defensive coach yells out "Hey Blue, you had a terrible angle on that! Ask the other guy!" I know I had a bad angle and asked the PU whou had followed the BR up a few steps. I pointed to him and he rang the BR up. We got the call right without hurt feelings, controversy, etc. Now if I had refused to ask the PU then I would have to live or die with my call myself. But as I understand it, I was the only one on that ball field who could ask the PU what he saw, and by the simple act of asking I was deferring to his judgement.
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