[Carl Childress]

The thread to which I responded has gone south. I don't know if I'll get everything in again, but....

Yesterday, my wife and I watched the Little Legion regional game between IA and MO.

The plate umpire was the best Little League umpire I've every seen on TV.

He is clearly a trained ump:

He used the Gerry Davis stance. (An umpire who followed on the West Coast seemed to want to do it but didn't know how.)

He verbalized his call on every pitch: "Ball." "Strike."

He waited for the pitch to end before making his call.

He used the umpire school hammer for strikes.

On a half swing ruled a strike, he pointed to the batter. On swinging strikes, he did not point and he simply signaled strike.

On a third strike swinging, he simply signaled strike.

He did not have dancing feet on pitches in the dirt, he kept his head steady (presumably he was tracking the pitch with his eyes).

He busted into the infield on every batted ball, mask in left hand, hat on his head.

Someone emailed privately to say the umpire lost the count twice in the same inning. My reply: Compared to what he did right, losing the count witg all the electronic counters on a national TV game was less than a pimple on an ant's a$$.

MO won, and they're going to the World Series. I imagine the umpire won't.

BTW: The only thing I saw him do wrong was call "Foul!" in a loud, commanding voice on obvious fouls. I'm told by a friend who should know that LL wants the umpires to do that.

I was surprised that the mandatory play rule was in effect as high as the regionals. They always suspend it for the World Series.

If you already replied to the other thread, you don't have to do it here. We can't rebuild the missing pieces. Gosh, I'm reminded of the midnight massacre when the Rhode Island flash struck down his posts.