[wadeintothem]

It has nothing to do with legs.

In a 3 man championship play system, there is absolutely no reason or advantage for 1B to come inside the circle on balls hit to center or left. The only thing that can happen is once that ball is immediately in, you could lose the ball... with worst case being - the umpire is in the line of fire... or "dancing" with players because you are in the way.

There is no reason at all for rabbit to bust inside on most plays. From the line or the rim, they have ideal positioning to work most plays from outside.

The ball IS coming back. ASA insist on jumping in, then jumping back out. This is unnecessary movement that causes balls to be lost by the BU, umpires to be caught in no mans land and umpires to find themselves in throwing lanes.

Personally, I would agree that rimming would not be appropriate in a two umpire system. I think that simply alleviates all together the concerns rimming brings up with "missing umpires"... for example .. if you rim on an obvious hit.. but it gets screwed up (bobbled, whatever), you can find yourself chasing a runner to two or even 3. Thats not a problem in 3 man IMO.

The book is for championship play and ASA is ready to build on their 3 man systems, I think. That is what I see by the crews I've been working with anyway. ASA works championship 3 man like its 2 man with an extra umpire instead of taking advantage of the system.