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I spent this weekend working an out of town tournament and had a game with a relative rookie. I thought I'd pass on some of the excitement. There were several "Out-Darnit-Safe" calls. He had a call on the bases that he allowed a coach to convince him to try & give to me after he made the call. That one made for some excitement. He saw the play, called the batter-runner Out at 1B and the offense didn't like his judgement, squawked for a while, he asked me what I saw. Once I clarified his question - was my judgement any different from his, I responded with "That's a jusgement call, I'm not touching that one. Call & results stay as called." Then I start to get the stuff from the offense - we ended that pretty quick. Later, with nobody on, a sinking ball is hit to center, I moved out & made the call "That's a trap" & made several Safe signals. Unknown to me, my partner buttonhooks & then turns & watches the ball. So he did not see Batter-Runner reach 1B & then head to the dugout while her coaches are hollering to get back to the base & the defense is now hollering to get the ball to F3. As I turn around, I have no clue as to what has happened & neither does my partner. Now batter-runner has retreated, so she hasn't reached 1B. When F3 comes at her, she takes a step back - nothing from my partner, so I get the Out due to stepping back toward Home to avoid/delay a tag. We had a long & interesting post-game get together. I got to watch him work the plate later on & he did pretty well. I probably won't see him work again for a year, so it will be interesting to see his growth them.
Steve M
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