[Tim C]

I went back through my diary of this season.

I think I have discovered a trend in "my" wacker calls.

But let me digress for a second:

In a game this season between the 1st and 2nd place teams in a league I was BU.

Early in the game there was a diving stop by F6 in the hole, he got to his knees and threw a strike across the diamond to a stretching F3.

The play was, in my eyes, very close. The type play that no matter which way you call it the other half the stadium will belly ache.

I gave a very strong, well sold, "OUT!"

Did I award the defense? I guess so since later in the inning when I was standing in "C" F6 said: "hey thanks for rewarding my play . . . I told my left fielder that good umpires reward good defensive play!" I guess he thought the guy was safe at first.

So let's fast forward to the third inning:

The opposite F6 goes way behind second base, snags a grounder up the middle, does the full turn thingy and throws to first where F3 is doing the splits at the stretch and we have another wacker . . .

Of course the first base rat (err, coach) is signalling safe.

I give the BIG "OUT!" from 2SF.

The runner, yep F6 from the OTHER team, says: "Well I guess that evens it up . . . wasn't that a great play!"

So in this specific game I had five "wackers" (coin flips) and I called them ALL "OUT!"

Now back to me diary:

I re-read several entries and have come to this decision about MY (and only my) wackers:

I call an unusual amount of them "OUT!"

I can draw only one of two answers from this documentation:

1) I have always been taught that umpires get in more trouble calling balls and safes than strikes and outs -- ergo -- somewhere along the line I have fallen into calling close plays "OUT".

2) I really got all 37 documented wackers correct.

In short I do reward good defense and I do lean towards not giving the doubt to poor defensive play. Do I "think" about this -- not really -- but I guess what goes on inside my noggin might be different than I thought.