Quote:
Originally posted by Kaliix
Just for the record, I do more games by myself than I do with a partner. We have one high school here in CT that WILL NOT pay for two umpires for anything but Varsity.
Most of my summer and tournament games are one umpire, until the tournament gets near the end that is.
That's just the way it is...
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Well, have to admit that I've done more than a few games, both big-boy & short-diamond, solo. I have always preferred to pull in a volunteer to call the bases, but occasionally that was not possible; or [in one memorable DH] the volunteer was so useless in game 1 that I really PREFERRED to do game 2 solo. [Yes, that was 2 full summer games back-to-back behind the plate]
"One-man mechanics" has to be, I'm sorry, a joke.
My "mechanics" for solo games begins and ends at the plate meeting:
"OK, guys, obviously I'm by myself today. I'll hustle as much as I can to get a good look at all plays, but the fact is, I'm gonna be calling some close ones from at least 90' away. If anybody is going to have a problem with that, now's the time to say so, & we'll call the game off & have it rescheduled. Otherwise, we're all going to do our best and have some fun, OK? Let's play some baseball."
After that, I do what I have to to be in as good a position as I can to cover whatever happens, but, really, it's all improvisation.
Our assn. solved the "too cheap to pay for 2 umps" problem by charging so much for teams that insisted on a single umpire that our proposed fee for a full crew made it obvious that the "savings" was false economy.
We get decent fees, too: Regular season 2-man Babe Ruth [WITH a time limit] pays $50 per ump: HS & Legion generally higher.