[johnnyg08]

Not necessarily Pete...there is a difference between collision and contact. people want "something" called all the time...you know that. If a car pulls out in front of you and you're about to T-bone the car...do you keep going simply because you have the "right of way"? Or do you stop to avoid the car that's impeding your ability to move forward? Where in my post did I say that just because baseball is not a collsion sport that we have to call something...in the same breath...do we want coaches teaching their kids to rip right through a runner, simply because he has a right to field the ball?

That's where playing experience ties into umpiring...you're right, we don't know exactly what he's thinking...but if an umpire understands baseball, the umpire might have a pretty good idea what's going on and might be able to make the right call based on that...the rules allow us some opportunities for us to make judgements based upon what we see...then we make those judgements based on our previous knowledge.