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Lately I've had a rash of "inform the new pitcher" partners. It's bad enough that they want to interject themselves to tell the pitcher the number of outs and how many runners are on base. A lot of guys need to point at each baserunner as they announce them to the pitcher. Just in case the pitcher doesn't know where first, second or third bases are, I guess?
This happened again yesterday. All I could think was, "This pitcher has at least four coaches in the dugout and her own set of eyeballs. Why does the umpire need to tell her the situation?".
I'm seeing a lot of strange stuff on the field this year:
- Last week I worked with a guy who verbally announced called strikes, but didn't use any sort of arm signal! He only made a hammer/arm signal on swinging strikes.
- Was partnered up with two different guys in the past week who didn't wear a chest protector or shin guards. One was in 12U, the other was in 18U. This is just a snapped collar bone or shattered knee cap waiting to happen.
- Was working a game with our associations UIC earlier this year, a guy who has been around forever. He would give the foul tip signal on ALL "fouled straight back to the screen" foul balls!
- My partner yesterday was wearing a blank, non-logo'd hat in our ASA sanctioned event. And it was a beanie!
- Then there was the guy who worked behind the plate with NO hat.
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