Hey, maybe NSA won't be so bad ... who wants to buy my gently used ASA stuff?
Meeting was Monday night. Now am totally briefed on NSA slow pitch, and it ain't as bad as I thought.
Great gang of national officials (from the next city over, Nicholasville, Ky.), holding out the possibility of lots of traveling weekend tourney work for blues (oops, can they still call black-and-white-wearing NSA umps "blue"?) who want to commit early to a schedule.
Rules changes from ASA are minor but significant. Longer base paths, 3 feet further pitching distance, 10-foot-high arc rather than 12, and the end of the verbal "illegal" pitch call and accompanying delayed dead ball signal are all progressive, I think.
Jewelry-wearing is an ejection. So is leaving your field position to argue balls and strikes, unless you're catcher or batter. (I might fill the parking lots on that one. Last season a left center fielder was giving me grief about balls and strikes. Before he batted next I deadpanned to him, "You know, I'm VERY impressed with your ability to call the plate from left center. I have another blue shirt in the car, you want to join the crew?" He was caught totally flatfooted and considered my "offer" for several seconds before picking up that he was being snowed. Some of these AA's, as well acquainted as they are with sarcasm, get completely blindsided by irony.) There's a chance our local city association will weeny out on some of the tougher rules. I hope they don't but it would be in character for them. We'll see.
Outfitting in the new NSA black-and-white will be costly, but hey, the old ASA stuff was getting kind of ratty. It's going to be a challenging year. I was wondering exactly how this new season was going to bring me any new challenges, I was kind of coasting last year. Not this time!
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What did moths fly into before there were field lights?
(--apologies to Steven Wright)
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