[greymule]

Here's my two cents:

In my opinion, slow pitch players, more than those of fast pitch or baseball, try to "get into your head." This is especially true at the upper levels, where pitchers can put it wherever they want, and if they can pressure an ump into giving them a deep strike, they gain an enormous advantage. And frankly, high-level slow pitch players often can bench press twice their weight, which fact alone facilitates getting into someone's head. Further, since the penalty for illegal pitches is merely that a ball is called, they test the ump to see what they can get away with. I have seen quasi riots develop because an ump wasn't enforcing the 12-foot height limit, or was allowing the pitcher to get away with flat pitches (under 6 feet), or didn't make the pitcher pause before the delivery.

I remember once at the beginning of a tournament final, the pitcher threw a deep pitch for ball one. He asked me where it was and shook his head a little. Next pitch was not quite as far back, but still deep. Ball two. He questioned that pitch, too, as if he'd never seen an ump call pitches so tight. After the inning, I heard him tell his team, "Yeah, you can trust the guy." No problems the rest of the way—and I saw him pull the same act the next year on a different ump. On the other hand, if you try to enforce a tournament strike zone in a "Z" league, you'll have a miserable evening.

But otherwise your guidelines are the same. Get yourself a good zone--for the level you're doing--and then don't deviate from it. Like IrishMafia, I usually handle the pitchers through the catcher, too.

One major difference between IrishMafia and me is the mechanics. What he described is exactly what the book instructs and undoubtedly works for most officials. However, I tried standing straight up to check the pitch and then bending to see the zone, but pitches looked good to me that didn't look good to anyone else, so I gave it up. I stay straight up, and I would say most of the umps around here do so as well.

From my experience in well over a thousand games, which includes significant high-level competition, slow pitch softball is one game where what the book says is a strike and what everyone expects you to call are two very different things. There are certain "strikes" that both offense and defense expect will be called a ball, much like MLB's four-inch-above-the-belt "ball" of recent years.

One last note: if all you're hearing is a little grumbling from slow pitch players, you're doing a great job.

Well, I guess it was more like fifty cents.