[greymule]

When your partner makes a terrible judgment call, you live with it unless he asks you for help. For example, I was once BU in a SP game, and the PU called a foul ball on a line drive that I could see, even from the 1B line, had landed a yard inside the LF line. After the offense begged him to appeal to me, he did, and I called it fair. Strange to do it that way, but we did get the call right, and nobody squawked very much. However, if he had said he was sure of the call—if he hadn't asked for help—then I would have said nothing even though I was absolutely sure he had blown it.

But let's say your partner misinterprets a rule, the offended team appeals to him to check with you, and he won't. Do you approach him and try to set things straight?

Suppose you were faced with the following situations that my partners have put me in over the years:

1. Partner allows runners to tag on an infield fly from the moment he called IF, not the moment of contact with the glove.

2. Partner calls a crash interference out on obviously inadvertent, mild contact after the ball has gone 50 feet from the play.

3. Partner calls interference on himself and bangs a runner out at 1B. "I made F4 throw around me," he says.

4. Partner calls a foul ball on a foul tip (bat to catcher's hand to chest protector to hand). Says to coach who objected, "It must go directly to the hand. Hits the hand and then the protector, it can't be a foul tip."

5. Partner awards "one and one" on an overthrow into DBT. "He was returning to 1B, so he gets 1B and 2B."

OK, these could go on and on, but at what point do we step in? Does it matter if the coaches simply accept whatever incorrect interpretation he makes? What if your partner won't appeal to you and the coach the approaches you directly and says, "You know that's wrong!"