[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally posted by WhatWuzThatBlue
Bob,
You are one of the only people I actually enjoy seeing post here. I know you didn't intend to extend the conversation and that is fine by me. It seems that the same few people respond and they have neither the experience nor verbal acuity to handle these verbal sparring sessions. I rather enjoy Garth and TAC chiming in, but they often let this get personal and that is a shame. Bob Lyle is not worth words.

When I said that I made my point it was simple. It is preposterous to think that an infielder is within his rights to tell a runner to run, but cannot tell him to go back to the base. Therein lies the conundrum; I have to explain it in simple terms because there are those members who see my name and shake with contempt. They don't care if I say the sky is blue and God is good. The world has encountered these beings before and Darwin has shown that they usually eliminate themselves before much harm is done to the gene pool. Too often they are so obsessed with proving me wrong that they fail to see that I may be agreeing with their view. They view my tone as condescending, but embrace Carl's diatribe as mother's milk. I find that utterly (yes, pun intended) hysterical.

There are a few umpires here that I respect. Sal, JJ, HHH, Bob Jenkins and a couple of Illinois boys that I won't mention because they'll think I'm kissing up. I actually am kind of fond of J.Rutledge because he wears his heart on his sleeve. I may disagree with some of his sentiments, but I respect the fact that he is usually sincere. I didn't notice any of those mentioned agreeing or disagreeing with the interpretations I have proposed. They are around to be certain; we've seen their names pop up every so often. Why is it that none of them have taken a stand against what I proposed? Maybe it's because we call it the same way. I have had my share of scuffles with a couple of them. They are not too shy to disagree. Hmmmm...

The only thing I can say to BigUmp56, is that you are guilty of the thing you accuse me of doing. You posted about verbal obstruction a few months ago on another board. It was ugly, as a few people took it beyond the realm of civility. You then posted it here and received a handful of responses. A little while later, you went back to the other site and did it again. I don't believe for a second that you are currently not participating in that madness over there. You can deny it all you want, but few people write like you and that is not a compliment. There, that wasn't too condescending, it was very direct. If you failed to appreciate the irony in the plays I suggested, that is not surprising either. Calling Verbal Obstruction is reserved for very serious infractions. I don't rely on decade old newsletters to support them. Do you even have a copy of that newsletter, BigUmp56? No, you weren't even umpiring high school ball back then. But enough already, you'll never appreciate the message.

In the end, we all have to make the calls we can live with. I have not personally encountered one official that would call the Verbal Obstruction as discussed here. I run with a pretty talented group of officials (multiple sports) and none think that this is a sensible rule. Most are glad that they don't umpire high school baseball. The others are glad that Illinois expects the officials to only enforce rules forund in the Rule and Case Books. So, call it however you want. I'm pretty certain that the coaches know what to expect when the see you in the parking lot. Mine know that I will hustle, call them according to the book and work together with my crew to get them all right.

Oh, this is so rich. To quote Garth, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHA.

You seem to think you are the only one who has experience, and the rest of us are just ignorant hillbillies that just fell off the turnip truck. The reason you didn't get the responses you were looking for, is that people see right through you. If we disagree with you, you call us stupid. If we don't verbalize our thoughts a certain way, you tell us we can't spar with you, that we're not experienced enough. You started this thread with a nice, flowery story about you and your buds hanging out watching football. This naturally led to a discussion about chatter, blah, blah, blah. You asked a question about F3 saying "go, go" to the runner. Then, when you got a few opinions, you sprang out of your hiding place, and said "AH-HA!!!, I tricked you all!!! I really wanted to keep the 'back, back' argument going." Then you get mad at the people who point out the fact that you are playing that "one-note samba" again.

Bob Lyle is not worth words? That's just downright rude. What a thing to say about someone. Do you think he would agree?

Going with the Darwin card? That's just downright lame.

While I disagree with much of what Carl Childress has said over the years, have you had a column in a major officiating magazine for over 20 years?

There are only a few umpires you respect on this forum? Do you even realize how many people you insult when you spew this garbage?

BigUmp56 is a great guy, who enjoys the opportunity afforded on these forums, to discuss baseball, and baseball umpiring. Someone has been posting using his name over on McGriff's board, since that ridiculous site let's you use any name you want, or no name at all! They take his prior posts, and re-paste them, to make him look bad, so they can talk s*** about him. And as far as his writing style goes, what business is it of yours? Nobody here is trying to impress you.

Lastly, so you hang around big-shot umpires. We all know big-shot umpires. My association has 3 current MLB umpires. So what? I have 20 years experience, BigUmp 56 has 15. Lots of folks that disagree with you have years and years of experience. While some of your buddies are glad they don't work high school, many of us are glad we don't work NCAA, with the idiotic rule book they use.

Respect goes both ways. You as much as said that you don't respect very many umpires on this forum. I am sure you're
one helluva umpire, but you shouldn't hold that over everyone's head. It isn't pretty. Until you give everyone here the respect they all deserve, you will get little respect in return.