[MD Longhorn]

This situation has always frustrated me. For some reason, the easiest and most obvious way for an umpire to quickly and clearly unmuddy this situation is anathema to both baseball and softball PTB.

What in the world would be wrong with simply using the word OUT when we have an out... just like every other time that we have an OUT. For some reason, those loftier than me think it's bad form to tell the batter they are out when they are, indeed, out.

The EASY way to fix this messy nonsense with umpires making signals to people that can't see them (Strybel ... why would signalling safe help any player), or having different calls (catch, no catch, NO NO, "ball on the ground!" (Really!?!?!)) etc is to SIMPLY call batters that are out on a caught 3rd strike OUT! If you don't say OUT, they are not out. Easy. Catcher's batters, etc can hear you say OUT, and can react if you don't. (PS - this would also help in the batter running to first to confuse matters with less than 2 outs and a runner on first - saying OUT clearly clears up this sitch too).

We - the umpires and our various supervisory boards - have made a complete muddy mockery of this whole situation. And it's flat out stupid that the easy fix is not the way to handle it.

Then the only difference we would have is "Strike! Batter's out!" (or strike 3 if you prefer), and simply, "Strike" or "Strike 3" (or "Swing!" on checks, etc).

Why is this the ONLY situation we are afraid to use the word "out"?