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Originally Posted by CoachJM
Steve,
I think it was about two years after I started reading the actual rules that I acquired a J/R. Prior to that I had accepted "on faith" the advice of a number of learned umpires NOT to ever bring a rulebook onto the field when I had an issue with an umpire's call. After reading the J/R (and, subsequently, other interpretations manuals) I understood WHY that was such good advice.
BTW, I can assure you from personal experience that there are many umpires who don't know that there are such things as "interpretations manuals". 
JM |
I know this is off the topic of this thread, but I couldn't resist.
During a 10 year old tournament game when the batter was hit by a pitch that bounced in front of him the PU did not award him first base, saying the ball was dead when it hit the ground. No amount of logic based replies worked. In trotting out the rule book, he wouldn't even give ground when cited with 6.08(b). He did, however, change his ruling when shown 2.00 definition of a "BALL", even though this didn't address the exact situation, but rather a pitch that strikes the ground and moves through the strike zone. He said he needed to see the book explicitly state that a ball that hits the ground and then the batter meant the batter got first base.
During the same game, several times his pitch call could be heard before the "ping" of the bat hitting the ball. Now, I understand it's neither wise nor helpful to pull out the rule book with an experienced umpire at an upper level game, but it was clearly necessary to avoid a protest in this situation. BTW, this guy - who was good natured about his mistake - claimed that he almost never did LL games, but rather mostly did Junior College. Go figure.
Thanks,
Dennis