[senior]

A confident pre-game will do wonders for you. In addition to the "ground rules" clarification, be sure to let them know how you handle the inevitible "questions", and that you expect them to be reasonable to deal with. I have also mentioned for the past few seasons that if their batter comes up to the plate with a bat, I'll assume he's going to try to use it, and I'll be looking for strikes. This saves a lot of griping when I call my ample strike zone, and several times during the game I hear the Coach telling his team "I told you to get up there and swing", rather than griping and complaining to me about strike calls.