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Old Mon Dec 19, 2005, 10:17am
AtlUmpSteve AtlUmpSteve is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Woodstock, GA; Atlanta area
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I have read other editorials (I suspect mostly in Referee Magazine) saying we should eat a bad call when the results may be controversial, too; but I don't buy it, in championship play. Rec ball, meaningless pool games, maybe you don't bother to enflame the natives. But, our job is to get the calls right, within acceptable protocol; and if a coach does his job right, and we umpires get together and realize a call was wrong, either because the wrong rule was applied (force out called when no force exists) or because the calling umpire lacked all the necessary information (couldn't see because of his angle, like this play), then it is our responsibility to make the right call. We can't fail to do our job solely because there is no absolute answer to what might have happened if the call was made correctly.

In this play, the answer is, unless there was something more that was obvious, is that every runner advances one base when correcting the call. I wouldn't accept any discussion from the defensive coach that the F3 didn't complete the play because of the call; F3 knows (or should know) better than anyone else that she didn't make the catch, and if there was more play needed, she didn't make it. Might she have thrown the ball away, or other runners advance more? Certainly. But, like obstruction, you have to make a determination of what the disadvantage was, and rule on that basis.

I am NOT suggesting we start changing basic judgment calls because we see the play differently; those calls stand. But any play that is appropriate to "go for help" is appropriate to fix; no matter who on the other team doesn't understand it.
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