Quote:
Originally posted by 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.
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Tee,
I looked back over my last HS season of notes and I note the same thing.
I know in my mind I'm not trying to reward any kind of play, but I do note that most all of my wackers are OUTS.
but, I've also noted that I've gotten very little complaints on most all of them for some reason, so maybe I'm just pretty good (g)
Thanks
David