[Andy]

Here's what we did and (maybe) what we should have done:

First of all, I was at an out of town tournament working with an umpire that I had only met that day. It was our third game together that day...no issues up until this point. From the previous games, I judged that he was an average umpire...I don't know how long he had been at this. It was his fifth game of the day and I think he just had a brain fart from being tired. The instinct to bracket the rundown just took over. Thanks, Steve for the new title, but I'm not any type of UIC, just an umpire that keeps trying to get better.

It was the fourth or fifth inning of my sixth game of the day, so I was a bit tired and didn't get to as good a position as I would have liked. I was near the circle when I made the safe call. Since everyone was watching the play at first base and my partner came charging directly up the first baseline, his big OUT call was what everyone saw. NOBODY said a word about my safe call. When I pulled my partner over to talk to him he had this "deer in the headlights" look, so I decided to take charge of the situation. I told him that we were going to go with his out call, since it was what everyone saw. We could not count the run, because neither of us saw if the player scored prior to the out, although I think she probably did.

We called both coaches together to explain the call and what we were going to do. The DC was fine (duh!) the OC wanted his run, he kept saying "somebody had to see her score!" I finally told him..."Coach, we screwed up." He said..."OK, that's all I wanted to hear". The offense had already scored three runs that half-inning to go ahead 4-0, so that helped.

Looking back, I should have stuck with my safe call and allowed the run to score as that's what would have happened if my partner had not come up the line. However, I would not throw my partner under the bus on the field. That would come in the postgame discussion.