[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by LDUB

There is an activity called reading, and there is a book called a rule book. If you want to know what the books says you have to read it. It is not anyone on this board's fault that some rat did not know a rule.

There is NO Umpire worth his Weight that simply reads the rule-book. In order to be a competent umpire one needs supplemental materials to truly UNDERSTAND the rules.

Here's an Example.

Find the Terms "Relaxed" / Unrelaxed Action" in the rule-book.

Answer - You will not

The aforementioned terms are used and defined by authoritative sources to aid the umpire on appeal plays. When does the base have to be tagged as oppose to the player and when will we honor the appeal.

One cannot learn the various nuances of the appeal process by strictly reading the rule-book.

Then there is the concept of "last time by"

In addition with the exception of the FED / NCAA rule books, the OBR rule-book is poorly written / indexed and more often than not one has to go to several places to find the COMPLETE answer.

Here's a simple one that we as umpires take for granted.

Is the ball dead when B1 gets hit by the pitch?
If you go to rule 6 all it says is that the batter is awarded first base. It says nothing about the status of the ball.

You need to go to another rule reference namely rule 5 which tells one that the ball is dead when b1 gets hit by the pitch.

In addition, if you call ball using a variety of rule codes I don't see how one gets by without having Carl's BRD to aid the umpire in the various rule differences.

The OBR rule book is boring and difficult to read. There is no awards table or dead ball table ala FED. In addition not all authoritative materials are available to the public ala the JEA (hopefully one day it will).

If it's an OBR type question I DO NOT look it up in the OBR rule-book. I go to either the PBUC Manual, BRD / or Jaksa Roder's Rules of Professional baseball where I will find a COMPLETE Answer with Case Play analysis.

Pete Booth