[tankmjg24]

NFHS rules 13-14 tournament if it matters. I am the plate umpire and the field umpire is a guy I have just done a few games with but know. Two close plays at the plate occurred and both times I ruled safe and each time the call went against team A. Each time team A coach questioned my call and the second time I finally had to warn him and put him back in the dugout. My field umpire agreed with both calls as did the catcher. These games were played at a college stadium so there was a lot of foul territory.

Here is the way the plays occurred:

First play was R2 and batter hits a gap shot to right center. The outfield was cheating in and they had to run all the way to the fence to field the ball. R2 easily scored and BR has a stand up triple. F9 throws to F4 who throws to F1 who is in the middle of the infield. The throw from F4 to F1 is wide and F1 misses the ball. The BR who is on third then attempts to score. F2 is backing up the area though and the ball rolls right to him. F1 races home and F2 throws him the ball and the BR is about 20 feet from home when F1 catches the ball at the plate. The BR slides into the plate and F1 reaches out to tag him and does so in the shoulder. BR feet was easily across home before F1 tagged him so I called safe.

The second play has R3 and F1 throws a wild pitch. R3 attempts to score. The wild pitch bounces off the brick wall behind home and F2 only has to go back about 10ft to grab the ball. F1 follows his pitch to the plate. F2 throws to F1 who is standing in the left handed batters box. R3 is only about halfway home when F1 catches the ball, but he proceeds home anyhow. R3 slides across home and F1 goes straight down with the tag and tags R3 in the foot but on the backside of home plate. R3 was not tagged until he had already slid across home so I called safe.

Team A ended up losing the game by 4 runs. After the game was over my partner and I were sitting in the umpires lounge doing a post game. Other umpires that were doing the tournament were present, and one was a recently retired minor league umpire. He started to talk to us and mentioned that he saw the plays occur and from his angle it seemed as if I was right in my calls, but he felt as if I should have ruled out on each. His rationale was that from the coaches angle and fans angle the fielder has the ball and is waiting to make the tag and the runner is no where near the plate. If you rule out no one really questions the call as it looks right. When you rule safe everyone looks twice and it leads to arguing. From talking to him, the way it was taught to them was ball beats runner rule out unless everyone in the ball park could tell no tag occurred.

So now my question is, did I make the correct calls or should I adopt this school of thought that he was talking about?