[GarthB]

In his latest collection of thoughts at officiating.com, Rollie attempts to justify his habit of publicly asking his partners "Would you like to know what I saw?" on close plays by equating it with Dave Yeast's positive comments about a play in which the umpires, without fanfare, without one yelling to the other, get together to get a play right at first.

Either Rollie is being purposefully deceptive in attempting to equate the two methods of getting/giving help, or he really doesn't understand the difference between throwing a partner under the bus and getting the call right.

Getting the call right does not involve calling everyone's attention to you. Getting the call right does not involve announcing to the world that your partner should check with you.

Earlier in this "piece", Rollie intones reasons for umpires to come together and chat between innings: "His purpose is to remind his partner, or even teach him for the first time, how to cover a play."

Well, this may explain somethings. It would seem from this that Rollie is continuing to work with rookies game after game. If that is indeed his experience, I guess that training partners bewteen innings might work for him. For those of us who work with qualified umpires, it doesn't.

Another possible explanation of some of what Rollie writes might be contained in the logo on his cap.

(Edited to add):

Having now read Blaines portion of this point-counterpoint article I see the problem....the two writers are mismatched. They are not writing from the same point of reference so their points/counter points don't align.

One writes from and for the LL frame of mind. The other writes from and for the experienced upper level 90' diamond frame of mind. There isn't as much a collision of thoughts, there's several near misses. The opinions of the two writers pass each other by without so much as a friendly "howdy".

If you're just starting out at the LL level and want to stay there, trying fighting your way through Rollie's ramblings. If you're experienced at upper levels, or have ambitions to work there, read Blaine.

[Edited by GarthB on Jan 19th, 2006 at 03:22 PM]