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Originally Posted by jicecone
Show me one that says you can't.
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i can't, but ask one of the numerous guys on here that have been to one of the schools and they'll tell you the same thing. do not call time to clean the plate. unless you are using a friggen vacuum, it should take all of 2 seconds to do. get in, swipe 5 or 6 times, get out. if cleaning the plate is taking so much of your time that you are risking missing something on the field, you're being lazy. do it faster. if you have a situation where the plate is completely covered after a slide, or maybe it's raining and there's mud all over it, sure, maybe you're going to need 10 or more seconds to do it. in that case i wouldn't have a problem calling time to do it cuz there is going to be a significant amount of time spent dealing with it. a 2 second project does not warrant calling time, turning your lazy butt around, diligently swiping every speck off, strolling back behind the plate, waiting for everyone to get ready again and then putting it back in play. you've turned that 2 second deal into 30-45 wasted seconds. you call it pro-active, i call it an unnecessary waste of time.
i've said this before (though i don't remember if it was this site or one of the other ones) that you guys have a tremendous resource in former pro guys and former pro school instructors on here. there's always talk on here of being as professional as you can be when doing your job, so why not use this resource and strive to do things as they are taught at the schools? granted, there are some parts of the pro game that do not fit into amateur ball, but there are many, many things that do. these are simple things that we call "polish" when instructing and are universal to umpiring. this "situation" is one of them.