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Originally Posted by mcrowder
I was confronted with a room full of "My zone is my zone" guys one year as well, and I'd seen these guys do exactly as you say. We discussed at a preseason clinic once, and I decided to film each umpire once during a scrimmage. Then we ALL watched all the films before the season started. You'd be surprised at the eyes that were opened.
It was a nice training tool, as guys could see themselves moving their bodies to track a pitch, call a pitch too early, and yes ... call that ankle strike (and sometimes oversell that ankle strike three).
I think ALL of our zones (self included) improved that year, and we now do it every year. We watched the first year one (5 years ago) recently and all got a good laugh from it. It's amazing to see the difference now.
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Good idea, and good advice. Yes, the problem is TEACHING the zone. It's extremely odd to me that this is the one area of umpiring where everyone is given the guidlines (many repeated in the posts above), but then nevery really TAUGHT.
Using video is a really good idea. Another idea is to set up a session with pitchers and catchers and stand-in "hitter", then position umps at various positions around the plate, then let the one behind the plate call balls and strikes, with those in various positions also calling on the planes -- that is, those on the side calling high/low, and those in front/behind calling in/out. It would be interesting to see how much agreement there was with respective views. The "plate ump" calls 20 or so pitches, adjusting against the group consensus. Then everyone rotates. Just a thought -- ANY thought -- to provide more tools.
Thanks for the inputs ...