Thank you Bob for at least pointing it out.

For all the rest of you guys who have decided to take shots against me, it would appear that none of you actually paid any attention to what I said and think about it in the context in which it was intended.

These are some of the negative comments directed at me

That's why you get the big bucks - to decide those things. Get some advice from more experienced folks and learn how to call it.

If you always call it that way, if nothing else you'll be consistent.

But often wrong

Tell that to the umpire that told me - he's been umpiring since 1957 so he has 50 years and is still active in Illinois. He's been to 10 state finals and Umpire-in-Chief for either A or AA each year for the past 7.

As the saying goes, some umpires have xx years experience and some have one year's experience xx times.


I guess that kind of shoots a hole in your line of thinking.

Nope. You're being paid to call the plays and make the decisions based on the rules and not using over-simplified no-brainer guidelines.

That's where we differ. I say it's your job to learn the game enough so you recognize the situation. If you're looking for something like "the ball is within 13' 7 3/16" of the fielder" - don't hold your breath. You have to know the game.

How do you defend that? "Coach, I'm sorry, but there are words in the rulebook that require judgement. I have no judgement, and refuse to get me some - and all the other yahoos in my area do the same thing. So we are going to ignore the parts of the rulebook that seem to require judgement, and rule on this play the way they would in softball."

You have no business on the field, in my humble opinion (not just based on this thread either).

All of this started out of one simple statement:

We were pretty much taught that if the fielder does not have the ball it is obstruction. "Imminent" is too vague and leaves too much discretion. If you always call it that way, if nothing else you'll be consistent.

This is what I was originally taught over 30 years ago and reinforced at one of our clinics. I never said I agreed with it, or that I liked it or anything of the kind. What I did was defend the logic behind it, nothing more, and to some of you I should already be banished for life. Yet nobody took exception to Blue 37 when he said -

It is the same with "imminent", although NFHS does not use that term. It uses the phrase "attempting to make a play" which still leaves it open to umpire judgment. My suggestion would be to find out how your association wants "attempting to make a play" judged, and call it that way. Our State rules guy has stated in our rules meeting the past two years that the "player must have the ball" or it is obstruction. I disagree with that interpretation, but I will do what I am told to do.

Everybody complains about an umpires judgment. I have absolutely no problem making judgment calls. Two years ago I went to a clinic and there was a rather lengthy discussion on this topic. On the topic of "attempting to make a play" some said "as soon as the ball left the hand of the fielder throwing the ball", others said "if it's close", others were everywhere in between. Everyone of them could justify in their own minds that their reasoning was sound. What if you have two umpires with opinions at the opposite ends doing a double header and similar situations happen in both games. You now have a situation where the judgment of both umpires is called into question. Which one is right, which is wrong, are they both right, both wrong?

Based on what I was taught, some of you have taken to criticize the persons who taught me and that they would be wrong. The only reason they would be wrong is because it doesn't agree with YOU. You say I should get advice from experienced folks, I show you a guy with 50 years experience, then someone else says that's the last person I should be getting advice from.

So what I'm reading into all this is that I should only take advice from each of you and nobody else. I realize this is a somewhat simplistic statement but that's what your statements seem to imply.

When there is a judgment call in baseball, it's neither right nor wrong - it's just judgment. You could have two umpires side by side looking at the same play and coming to different conclusions because of how they choose to interpret the rules. I'm not talking safe or out, ball or strike. And the reason their interpretations are different is because of the way they were taught to interpret. Obstruction at home plate is probably one of the most highly debated topics from a judgment perspective.

Some here seem to imply that my interpretation is a cop-out because I'm being paid the big bucks that I should learn the game and that the way I was taught is wrong. From a LOGICAL standpoint, possession of the ball by the fielder is the ONLY way to CONSISTENTLY guarantee the correct call, and for one reason only; it eliminates almost all human reasoning - the only thing to decide is whether or not the fielder had the ball in his possession at the time of the contact. Since any two umpires can have differing interpretations the judgment here is yes or no - did the fielder have the ball, and not "how close was the ball to the plate and how far up the line is the catcher and is he really 'attempting to make a play'". And as I said earlier - no coach can ever fault me for my logic in this particular case. It is "cut and dried". And until there is a consensus with the FED on what criteria should be used, I am going to continue to use my way. Not because it's a cop-out, or the easy way. If the FED said use as a guideline "if the ball is halfway between the fielder a throwing the ball and the fielder receiving the ball" I could approximate that. Then the only judgment is wheter it met the halfway criteria. The logic is at least defensible and eliminates a significant amount of interpretation. I'm doing it because it is the only fair way to both teams. My ego as an umpire is never going to be called into question because of my interpretation of IMMINENT or "ATTEMPTING TO MAKE A PLAY". it would appear that some of your egos are bruised, simply because I held a differing opinion and used logic to defend. I have been neither critical or derogatory towards any of you because of how you choose to interpret the rules, and yet some seem to revel in criticism to bolster your own point of view, and quite honestly, I don't deserve it. Somewhere along the line some of you have forgotten that, despite how we may have our differences, that I am a fellow umpire and don't deserve to be attacked in the manner which some of you have chosen.