[RadioBlue]

Originally Posted by KJUmp

OK, here's my .02 for whatever it's worth:

"I cannot recall if I gave the count after the foul bunt"
Brett and Irish already hit on the importance of this. Should be SOP.

And as I stated, it is my SOP. I just can't remember for certain if I did, or not.

Originally Posted by KJUmp

...."there might have been an offensive conference during"
??? How can you not know if there was one? You're the PU. Do you not record charged conferences on your lineup card? Or do you rely on memory? Or were these being reported by you to an official scorer in the press box?
If there was a charged OC....refer back to Brett & Irish's comments on counts.

I made the OP five days after the events occurred. If there had been an OC, I would have and did record the conference on my lineup card. I didn't save those lineup cards, so I'm purely relying on my memory from a tournament where I worked 20 (yes, 20) games.

Originally Posted by KJUmp

..."if BU saw something funny, he should have shut things down and come to me"
I don't know if you guys covered in your pre-game how to handle a sitch where a BU has information that needs to be conveyed to you during the game. Your reply to my post seems to indicate that it was not discussed in your post game. BTW...did you guys have a proper post game? I mean just the three of you, not just a rehash of the play in the umpires tent with the rest of the umps.

The day this happened, each umpire was scheduled for 4 - 6 games (5 for me that day). Umpires were coming off of one game and heading right back out for the next one. No, we did not have a much of a pre-game nor did we have a chance to post-game.

Originally Posted by KJUmp

"His lack of confidence in the situation (outs, count, etc.) kept our crew...."
Were "outs, counts. etc." covered in your pre-game? I asked what you felt the crew, as in 3 umpires working as a team, could have done better,and you're tossing B1 under the bus. Maybe his lack of confidence was due to nerves and inexperience at this level of umpiring. Was he new to Nationals? If he was it was either the job of the most experienced "Nationals guy" on the crew, or you as the PU, to sense this and during pre-game spend some extra time with him. I do hope that if you did not have a formal post game, you at least sat down with him to review the sitch and offer some solid confidence building advice.

U1 is a 20+ year vet and Div. I NCAA umpire. He's a fantastic umpire and I would work with him anywhere. I'm not intending to throw U1 under the bus. However, he's the only one of us three that knew something was awry at the time it occurred. KJ, you've speculated and dreamed up stuff that's not there. Not only were we working a bunch of back-to-backs, but we were working during a day that started with a 4-hour rain delay and 2 of the 12 diamonds were shut down that day due to unplayable conditions. We were in survival mode that day.

Originally Posted by KJUmp

"....from keeping the situation under control."
That's your job. You're the plate ump. You're the de facto crew chief. This is what running and managing a game is all about.....at any level, but even more so at a National. When **** starts to hit the fan, when the ship starts to drift off course, you're guy that has to take a leadership role to get things back under control, be it with the players, the coaches, or your crew.

...which is exactly what I did. Again, since I had no knowledge something was awry until the end of the half inning, I had nothing out of the ordinary to control. To my knowledge, everything was under control.

Originally Posted by KJUmp

At that point he got called away
I would have tracked him down later during the tournament to finish the discussion on the correct ruling....and to review/discuss with him how your crew handled the sitch.

I did finish the conversation with my UIC, but I don't want to throw anybody else under the bus.

Originally Posted by KJUmp

Radio, it was a screwy situation to be sure...again, not looking to slam you. You guys handled it the way you handled it when it happened in the heat of a National tournament. I just think there are some things to learned here.

I hope that your national went well, and that it was an overall good umpiring experience for you.

I do appreciate your input, KJ. And, you're right, there ARE lessons to be learned here. This was my 7th national and this is as hard I've ever been worked at one. We had two days of 4 hour-plus rain delays. One day I didn't get off the diamond until 2:10 a.m. ... and my game wasn't the last one of the day!!!! The tournament director got 45 minutes of sleep that night. All in all, it was a fantastic experience and, as always, I met a lot of great people and forged some new life-long friendships. (And .. I'm almost caught up on my sleep.)