Quote:
Originally Posted by Manny A
What's the problem with raising hands? All the fielder is doing is requesting a killing of play, just like when they raise their hands to request Time to have a conference, recover from a base slide, etc. etc. We recognize it, but don't honor it until the appropriate time, which in this case is when all play ends and the umpire goes to verify the ball is indeed over the line. Otherwise, what should the girl do, just stand there staring over the line like Terence Mann looking into the corn?  |
I don't have a problem with the fielder's raising their hands. I didn't say that I did. What I said was that I personally don't go into a mini-rules clinic at the pre-game conference and that I leave the instructions to players on how to handle these situations up to their coaches.
Like Hugo posted above, I've had too many people interpret these pre-game discussions to mean that anytime a fielder raises her hands the ball is automatically dead, and if they don't raise their hands it isn't. And everytime it gets twisted around to, "The umpires told us that".
So, I let the coaches tell their fielders how to react if a ball goes out of play and let them tell their runners how to run the bases if it might be in question.
Kind of hard to be misquoted about something if you don't bring it up...
None of this changes our jobs as umpires or affects our call. If we see a ball go out of play, we'll rule accordingly, whether a player throws her hands in the air or not.