Quote:
Originally posted by Ranger
I will not play the point by point rebuttal game. It has gotten so far off the subject of game management. I am interested in game management. If anybody wants to educate me any further about how different things are in foreign countries they can email me.
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Now, how about ejections and game management?
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Well, Ranger, I saw something different in Pete Booth's original post. You say it was about "ejections and game management", and certainly that may come into the equation. I saw it as a question as to why some umpires don't enforce the penalties for rule breaches consistently. That may be entirely unrelated to game management per se. It may be more about umpire ethics, or even the desire by umpires to be "liked" by players, coaches and managers.
I understood from Mike's post that he was advocating ignoring breaches of rules and the associated penalties depending on one's personal perception of the severity or the circumstances of the offense. That may be de rigour in LL, certainly, but I don't believe it is advice that ought to be followed at the high school or college level.
My position was that, where there was a
clear and undeniable breach of the rule and a specific penalty required, it is certainly not the umpire's job to decide whether or not to enforce a penalty based on his or her personal perception of the seriousness (or even the circumstances) of the offense. In several posts I pointed out, however, that I did not consider minor "chirps", normal mumbles and grumbles about the zone or even minor beefs over close calls on the bases to be a "clear and undeniable breach" of the rule. I even gave a specific example for the latter case, in illustration.
From the perspective of so-called "game management", I have written a series of articles on "Umpire Ethics" for
eUmpire.com which go into the issues surrounding the making of an ethical choice between enforcing a rule and maintaining discipline and order on the playing field. That was NOT the focus of my posts in this thread.
My posts in this thread were purely and simply focused on ensuring that umpires do NOT believe they have the right, and sometimes even a requirement, to carelessly usurp the authority of the rule makers in defining the penalty for a given offence. If there is a rule with a specific penalty attached, and that rule has clearly and obviously been breached, it is NOT the umpire's job to decide that the penalty should NOT apply, or should be mitigated, simply because of some personally-perceived scale of seriousness for the offense UNLESS the enforcement of the penalty clearly conflicts with the obligation to maintain discipline and order on the playing field. OBR 9.01(a) says that umpires are required to enforce the rules, and I maintain that includes the associated penalties. We are NOT gods, or even judges most of the time. There ARE certain limitations on the extent of the umpire's power on the diamond, and this is one of those limitations.
Now, Ranger, although I am in a foreign country and things may certainly be different here, we STILL play baseball as defined by the
Official Baseball Rules, the
NAPBL Umpire Manual and the UDP
Manual for the Two Umpire System. I believe I have made my position clear, but if you feel you haven't understood anything I've said you may feel free to email me to seek a clarification. I note that so far you have singularly failed to follow this course of action. OTOH, I do NOT see it as my role to "educate (you) any further about how different things are in foreign countries". True education requires interested participation from both sides, and I perceive that the interest may certainly be lacking on at least one side of this discussion.
Cheers, and a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours.