[GarthB]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CoachJM
[B]Garth,

I see you were unable to find a kitten.

No...I found one.

While I can see how a person who has a certain predisposition might misinterpret my comments in such a way as to characterize them as suggesting arguing balls and strikes with a specious "rules" argument, I certainly didn't say that. Nor would I condone it. Not "step balks" either, in case you're wondering.

Excuse me for extrapolating on your comment: "All rulings made on plays during baseball games involve both an element of judgement and an element of rules application."

Since you've decided to contribute your insight, experience, and knowledge to the question being discussed (oops, my bad - your comments didn't even touch on the question being discussed. Anyway,...)

ACtually I did address that part of your post that I found interesting. I do believe I have the right to do that. The rest, to me, was so much blah, blah, blah that I've heard so many times. Enough others were willing to discuss it, I didn't feed the need.


I'm curious as to how you would characterize an umpire, who has just blown a call because he misapplied the rules, who facetiously responds to a coach's reasonable and proper appeal with: "Sorry Skip, I didn't see it." ?

I'm not sure, coach. I am not familiar with umpires who act facetiously when they make mistakes. I suppose, if I were ever to find myself in a sucn a situation as a coach, God forbid, I would hope that I would act as I do know when a coach exaggerates his case to me or outright lies to me, ("Garth, he couldn't have balked he wasn't even in the stretch, he was in wind-up", the coach yelled from the dugout while his pitcher, who froze after the balk call, remained, for all to see, in the set position.)

I do my best to keep the game going, keep my professionalism, recognize that no one is perfect and not whine endlessly about it.