[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by Fritz

Different scenario but curious as to how you would handle this -

2 man crew, I'm PU, partner in B with R1. Pitch comes in high and outside, batter starts a swing and checks. I have a clear view and call "no he did not, Ball!"

DC tells catch to have me appeal to my partner. Catch asks for an appeal and I respond to him and the coach "coach, my partner is in the middle of the field and doesn't have a better angle than I do."

As we settle in for the next pitch, Coach demands I ask for an appeal, says it is his right. I respond "Coach, I already explained why there is no point in doing so, let's play ball."

Coach continues to mutter under his breath, nothing loud enough for me to understand, and we go on without incident.

Would you have gone ahead and asked for the appeal? This wasn't a case of me getting blocked, blinking or in some other way missing the attempt and needing help. Should I have just quickly asked my partner to get his safe call so we can keep the game moving?

As others have stated, in OBR you have to go to your partner. I really hate it when it is very obvious to grand ma out behind the right field fence that he did not go and I get asked to go to my partner. Hopefully your partner hasn't gone to sleep (and doesn't want to walk home ). In those kind of cases the RAT is most likely using one of the myths about a check swing strike. But I digress.
I learned from a minor league umpire at a camp to handle a check swing-ball like this. In a forcefull tone I say "BALL,...NO!" so as to remove all doubt as to my ruling. Once I had a fairly smart catcher who replied to his head RAT (when the rat wanted an appeal) "He asid 'NO!'" . That kid got my best 'zone' that day. Seriously...It works pretty well for me.