Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.
Wrong mechanic.
The Head Coaches during the Pre-Game Conference should be told to instruct their players that if one of their Players thinks the ball has gone into Dead Ball Territory, his Player should raise her arms; the Umpires will then allow the runners to complete their running of the bases; when the runners have completed their running of the bases, Time will be called and the Umpires will then go out to the Dead Ball area and determine if the Ball actually is in Dead Ball Territory. If the Ball is in Dead Ball Territory then the umpires will return the runners back to the diamond on the bases they would have acquired due to the Ball going into Dead Ball Territory. The Coaches also are reminded that if the Player raises her arms and then picks up the Ball the Player is indicating to the Umpires that the Ball is not in Dead Ball Territory.
MTD, Sr.
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Man, that's a long speech. That's like the Gettysburg Address of plate conferences.
Some of it will probably just confuse them more than they already are. And some of it is flat-out inaccurate.
If a player raises her hands, then picks up the ball, it indicates to the umpires the ball is not dead? No, not if I saw it with my own two eyeballs and and decided it was already dead first. Then it doesn't matter what the player does. All that indicates is that she picked up a dead ball.
I quit saying anything about "raising hands" in my plate conferences a long time ago. Raising hands has nothing to do with any playing rule or umpire mechanic. I see it as more of a coaching issue than an umpire duty. We're going to call it dead if we see it go into a dead ball area and we're going to keep it live if we don't. Raising hands isn't going to change that. Let their coaches tell them how to react if they're chasing a ball near the boundary lines. We're going to our same job regardless.