[greymule]

The J/R and the other references (BRD, Evans, etc.) have been invaluable to me. This is not because they provide definitive answers to every "what if," but because they examine and consider so many plays that simply don't fall neatly under a black-and-white section of the rule book.

Whether or not you find what you're looking for in these various publications, studying them gets you thinking along the right lines. They acknowledge the gray areas and at least provide guidelines and recommendations that will usually steer you in the right direction.

When I started umpiring almost 40 years ago, I knew the OBR book pretty well—the players and coaches thought I was knowledgeable. But there were so many contingencies I was unsure about, and when I asked other umpires, they usually quite confidently provided an authoritative answer but on follow-up questions quickly surrendered. In fact, most of the other umps I knew at that time weren't much interested in talking about rules. I think some of them were so confident in their incorrect interpretations that they were able to bluff their way successfully.

I have hardly had any sort of big-time umpiring career, and I gave up baseball for softball several years ago. But these books (and this forum) have helped make me a vastly better umpire. Interestingly, after you have done baseball for a long time, you realize how weak the supporting literature is for softball.