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Have you ever had one of those days when you just knew nothing was going to go right? I had one of those days all day today at a regional clinic for Babe Ruth Umpires.
It started when the regional UIC and head clinician started covering balks. He was going along alright until he mentioned that the pitcher must take his signs from the catcher while on the rubber or it's a balk. I raised my hand to explain that the rule was not to prevent the pitcher from taking signs from someone other than the catcher, but rather to ensure that he took his signs while on the rubber to prevent the quick pitch. He immediately told me that I was wrong and that if I see a pitcher take signs from the dugout I'm supposed to call a balk with runners on. Well, I didn't want to seem like an *** so I let it go.
The next item that made my head spin was appeals. We started discussing the ways the defense loses it's right to appeal, when one of the guys mentioned he had a play where R1 missed second base on his way to third. When the ball came back into the infield, F6 requested time and his partner granted time. F6 then went to the bag and verbally announced he was appealing the miss of the base. Evidently his partner rung him up immediately. The umpire in the class wanted to know if that was a legal appeal, and guess what. The clinician said it was! Again, I raised my hand and said that was an incorrect ruling, letting him know that no appeal can be made in an OBR game while the ball is dead. He asked me to show him in the rule where it says an appeal must be made during a live ball. I told him to look at 7.11 and if that didn't convince him he should look at 5.02 and then 5.11 to see how to legally put the ball back into play. He looked up the rules and still said I was wrong and that just for arguments sake he would get a clarification from BR International and see what they have to say. Like I don't know how that's going to come out already.
The next 'discussion' that got under my skin was also on appeals. One of the guys brought up the mechanic for a missed base when the runner beat the ball to the bag at first. The UIC said to do nothing and as soon as F3 steps on the bag, bang out the BR. Another umpire who I know from working HS games with said that also was incorrect. Not that I didn't know that, but it was nice to hear someone else take a stand on a bad ruling. We went round and round with the UIC trying to convince him the proper mechanic is to signal safe as soon as the trail foot passes the bag and then wait for the appeal. Try as we might he insisted it was our duty to call him out as soon as F3 received the ball while touching the bag.
We started covering obstruction, specifically type A. The UIC cited a play where R2 was being played on and was obstructed by F6. Okay, should be simple enough, or so I thought That was until he said to kill the play and if the runner had not gotten at least half way to third he is sent back to second. WTF? I've heard some coaches say some pretty stupid stuff over the years, but this stuff was coming from a regional UIC for Babe Ruth baseball. Granted this is his first year as the UIC, but that's no excuse for making these kinds of mistakes.
I hope things get better because they certainly can't get much worse.
Tim.
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