[Andy]

I have returned from the Men's B National this past weekend in Prescott, AZ.
For those of you not familiar with the area, Prescott is at a 5000+ foot altitude in NW Arizona. Cool weather, nice facilities for softball and the city does an outstanding job in supporting the tournament in all areas.

The tournament had 19 teams, up from 6 a year ago, when the tournament was held somewhere in Texas.

Each game of the tournament used the 3 umpire system, so that was a good opportunity to use the mechanics. I do not have the opportunity to do as much Men's ball as I would like, so I consider these tournaments a challenge for me. I had been stressing about how to call the mens strike zone, but decided to just go with the NCAA zone. After my first plate game, the UIC, Malcolm Boyles, gave me a little tip on how to set my feet...that worked wonders and I was very pleased with my plate work for the tournament. Mens ball is notorious for the amount of pissing and moaning about the zone and everything else, but in each of my games, the whining pretty much stopped after the first inning.

As I mentioned, Malcolm Boyles was the tournament UIC. What a pleasure to work for him! He gave me some great information and was very easy to talk to and get along with. Jim Lykins (Nevada UIC) even came down for part of the tournament.

We had about a 5 hour rain delay on Saturday....since the tournament was all at one four field complex and all of the umpires were there it was a great opportunity to get to know some of the other guys. Probably the most fun I have had at a national and personally, my best tournament as an umpire.

I have posted some pictures on my facebook page...let me know if you want the link. I took them all with my phone, so the quality is not the greatest, but there are some decent ones.