advice on chirping - Page 3

moncton · #31 (**permalink**) Sat Jun 19, 2004, 03:30pm

Ignore it and bear down -- the chirping is seldom too bad unless you're really missing more than usual.

A certain amount of chirping is part of the game, especially on a near miss ball or borderline low strike late in a close game.

If it gets personal or obscene, the mask comes off and someone goes. I agree with Windy City Blue that ejecting from the dugout is bush, but so is the action of a player or coach who abuses the security of the dugout by crossing way over the line.

If I'm not sure who it is, I'll generally dump a player who has already been subbed for. Then I'll tell the manager I just did him a favor, and that he can return it by gettin a grip on his team.

wobster · #32 (**permalink**) Sat Jun 19, 2004, 04:44pm

I had to dump a guy today, my first.

Here's the sitch. R3 comes home on a shot to right. F2 standing in line with 3rd baseline about 3 feet on the other side, well out of the way, in my opinion. R3 had plenty of space to avoid him.

R3 steps before the bases, misses it, and drills the catcher. When R3 enters dugout, I call him out for missing home, appeal not required in our LL. Hilarity ensues. After that dies down, next batter takes a pitch. THEN the first base coach catches on. He says appeal is required, catcher was in the way, he saw him touch it, everything to try and fight it. I ignore him and get ready to play. Then a guy in the stands starts in. Yelling, and screaming. I go over and ask his problem. He said I am horrible and that was a ridiculous call. Boom, he's gone.

It's amazing how much the coaches stopped chirping after that. Thanks HHH.

I didn't hear one question on a strike or ball call the rest of the game!

mrm21711 · #33 (**permalink**) Sat Jun 19, 2004, 09:55pm

ummmmm..........

DG · #34 (**permalink**) Sat Jun 19, 2004, 10:38pm

Quote:

Originally posted by wobster
I had to dump a guy today, my first.

Here's the sitch. R3 comes home on a shot to right. F2 standing in line with 3rd baseline about 3 feet on the other side, well out of the way, in my opinion. R3 had plenty of space to avoid him.

R3 steps before the bases, misses it, and drills the catcher. When R3 enters dugout, I call him out for missing home, appeal not required in our LL. Hilarity ensues. After that dies down, next batter takes a pitch. THEN the first base coach catches on. He says appeal is required, catcher was in the way, he saw him touch it, everything to try and fight it. I ignore him and get ready to play. Then a guy in the stands starts in. Yelling, and screaming. I go over and ask his problem. He said I am horrible and that was a ridiculous call. Boom, he's gone.

It's amazing how much the coaches stopped chirping after that. Thanks HHH.

I didn't hear one question on a strike or ball call the rest of the game!

So you dumped a spectator, but left a player in the game who "drilled" the catcher 3 feet on the other side of home. Ayayaya...

Cubbies87 · #35 (**permalink**) Sun Jun 20, 2004, 12:23am

Is there a correct mechanic for tossing someone?

While at first I thought this post would be for giggles, I have changed my stance on it and am phrasing it as a legitimate question.

Is there a prescribed manner in which to dump somone? Are there various methods depending on the severity of offense?

And finally, what is the "mechanic" for restricting somone to the dugout (FED)?

DG · #36 (**permalink**) Sun Jun 20, 2004, 02:11am

Quote:

Originally posted by Cubbies87
Is there a correct mechanic for tossing someone?

While at first I thought this post would be for giggles, I have changed my stance on it and am phrasing it as a legitimate question.

Is there a prescribed manner in which to dump somone? Are there various methods depending on the severity of offense?

And finally, what is the "mechanic" for restricting somone to the dugout (FED)?

"You" (right undex pointing at the offender), "are gone" (followed by a sweep of the right hand from right to left). That is an ejection.

"You" (right index pointing at the offender), "are restricted to the dugout" (followed by a stiff point to the dugout). That is a restriction to the dugout.

wobster · #37 (**permalink**) Sun Jun 20, 2004, 05:14pm

ok, I may have phrased that wrong. You guys are probably thinking high school and college drilling, lowering the shoulder and plowing. This was kind of a shove, could be taken as not having time to stop, since catcher was right on the other side of the base. He didn't hit him very hard. I use drilled very loosely. I can't remember is the catcher even hit the ground, as I was watching the runners feet, and I looked up in time to see him hit the guy. I then watched the runner to see if he was going to come back and touch the plate. That, to me, was not the issue here.

I did let the coach go who was on me about it, and I let the first outburst of fans go. This guy was still giving me hell after I was trying to restart the game.

DG · #38 (**permalink**) Sun Jun 20, 2004, 08:43pm

Drilling = malicious contact in my vocabulary. What is described is not a drilling. Give the coach "the message" if you don't want to hear anymore about the non-call.

wobster · #39 (**permalink**) Mon Jun 21, 2004, 07:51am

My BU told me after the game that I am too thin skinned!

This guy had 3 strikes against him, so to speak.

He insulted me,
He questioned my call,
He held up the game, since the players were all watching him.

My mother, who used to be in charge of all local traveling leagues, said it was a bad ejection, I shouldn't have done it.

I have asked a few other umpires, they said it was good. My father, who coached for 10 years and was in charge of traveling at town leagues for a time said it was a good ejection.

What do you guys think? From what he said was it grounds enough to eject?

His High Holiness · #40 (**permalink**) Mon Jun 21, 2004, 08:48am

Quote:

Originally posted by wobster
My BU told me after the game that I am too thin skinned!

This guy had 3 strikes against him, so to speak.

He insulted me,
He questioned my call,
He held up the game, since the players were all watching him.

My mother, who used to be in charge of all local traveling leagues, said it was a bad ejection, I shouldn't have done it.

I have asked a few other umpires, they said it was good. My father, who coached for 10 years and was in charge of traveling at town leagues for a time said it was a good ejection.

What do you guys think? From what he said was it grounds enough to eject?

Wobster;

You must learn to ignore most of the advice that you are getting within the league where you are currently located.

I am making the assumption that you want to get better and move up to high school, NCAA or something like that. If your goal is to stay in LL and work with kids, then it WOULD be a good idea to listen to those guys. They know what they are talking about in that arena only.

However, they have no clue about what it takes to become a top level umpire. If they knew anything about "real baseball", they would probably not be working in LL.

Real baseball at high levels is about control. One of the skills that you must master is ejections. (This is one of about half a dozen control skills that you must master, but master it you must and the other skills flow from its mastery. Therefore, it is pointless to learn much about these other skills until you have mastered ejections.)

It is simply not relevant at this stage of your career as to whether it was a good ejection or not. Or whether you handled it properly.

You must practice ejections to see the results and learn for yourself the positive and negative results of ejections. You must learn to manage the adrenalin and exitement that goes with an ejection. Only by studying the effects on the players, coaches, and fans, can you truly understand the power of an ejection.

You ejected someone. You noted that the whole game calmed down and people behaved. Let's assume that it was a "bad" ejection from everyone else's point of view. Let's also assume that you handled it improperly.

OK, so what. It produced the desired results and you learned something about ejections. From your point of view, it was the right move. Peace and harmony was restored and your game knowledge advanced. F$$$ everything else.

The kids are there to learn baseball and they make a ton of mistakes. Why shouldn't you be there to learn umpiring? And make a ton of mistakes?

WindyCityBlue was telling you about looking professional. With all due respect, WCB has a ton of experience and his experience may not be relevant to you right now. He was trying to teach you how ride a unicycle when your bicycle still has training wheels. You have to learn how to ride a bicycle before you can ride a unicycle. After you learn how to ride a bicycle, then you learn how to do wheelies. After you have mastered wheelies, you are ready for WCB's training on how to ride a unicycle.

The point is, that much of the advice that you are getting in your league is wrong. Much of the advice that you are getting on the Internet is irrelevant to where your game is at. You must develop a game plan to get from where you are to where you want to be. Find a local high school group to join in your area.

Peter

Rich · #41 (**permalink**) Mon Jun 21, 2004, 09:26am

I agree with Peter.

I ejected a Legion coach on Friday night. He's a high school coach during the season (I really don't understand the no-contact rule here for HS coaches in the summer with their HS teams, but am assuming that none exists) and his team reached the regional finals before losing to a near-.500 team that amazingly went on to win the state title.

Many of the HS kids couldn't make this tourney, so he got pounded twice. He got dumped in the 7th inning down 4 runs in the second game when he sent his runner from second before the pitcher started his motion home and a rundown ensued where he wanted (1) obstruction, or (2) the runner at third called "safe" for some reason.

After telling him that neither was going to be called and that we were starting the game up (so I could get the final 2 outs and get out of Dodge), he calls out to the BU that he needs to help me and starts walking slowly towards him in right field (I had come up to take the front end of the rundown and called the out at third) and I told him not to go out there.

He ignored me and walked toward the other umpire. I repeated myself when he was about 10 feet away still walking toward the other umpire and kept walking as if I wasn't even there. THEN I dumped him.

Moral of the story is that I didn't really feel my heart race or my blood pressure increase as I was ejecting him. Unfortunately, being a new coach used to umpires kissing his backside (since coaches essentially determine assignments here) he probably still doesn't understand why he was run, but someone did talk to him afterwards and explain why he got dumped -- and that person understood and tried to impart some wisdom on the coach.
--------------------------

The lesson from the above is: If you tell someone to do something and they openly defy you, they gotta go. Otherwise you've just shown everyone that you're not in charge.

Also, try to keep your ears inside the fence. If someone is being truly offensive or goes beyond the standard for behavior, find a game manager to get rid of the idiot. Or if none exists, call time and tell the coach to take care of the guy -- if he refuses, see the paragraph above (in other words, lose the coach and find somebody that WILL take care of the fan or end the game). Remain calm and try not to battle with a fan -- it's a confrontation that makes you look bad regardless of how justified it is.

--Rich

PS - There are 3 guys in my area that I work with regularly. These 3 guys are the only umpires in the area I would take anywhere and know they had my back. All four of us dumped somebody this weekend. It's that time of the year (summer baseball) and teams in general act up in the summer, especially coaches of traveling teams. If you need to run somebody, do it, and like Peter said, learn something from it.

wobster · #42 (**permalink**) Mon Jun 21, 2004, 09:27am

I don't believe in our area that we have a high school group. Our area is so small that once an umpire gets high school certified, he is contracted directly by the school, not an organization. I may be wrong, but I have never heard of an association around here.

If anyone knows of one in Northeast Indiana, let me know, please.

A lot of the umpires I get advice from also do high school games. Most of them are very experienced in high school, but do LL in the summer to earn a little extra.

wobster · #43 (**permalink**) Mon Jun 21, 2004, 09:35am

So I should have went to the manager and had him get rid of the fan? Come to think of it, that would have been more professional, but I am not sure it would have gotten the point across that we are there to play baseball, not argue with the umpires call. What do you think? I do not know, personally.

Maybe I should have taken out the 15 year old coach on first base giving me hell, and had the manager take out the fan? To me, the coach didn't cross the line, but he was an assistant, so he doesn't have the same rights as a manager.

Any ideas how I could have handled this better?

wobster · #44 (**permalink**) Mon Jun 21, 2004, 09:37am

I might add that my BU was not certified, nor has he ever done a plate game. He is a board member that does bases to save the league money.

JRutledge · #45 (**permalink**) Mon Jun 21, 2004, 09:41am

Quote:

Originally posted by wobster
I don't believe in our area that we have a high school group. Our area is so small that once an umpire gets high school certified, he is contracted directly by the school, not an organization. I may be wrong, but I have never heard of an association around here.

If anyone knows of one in Northeast Indiana, let me know, please.

A lot of the umpires I get advice from also do high school games. Most of them are very experienced in high school, but do LL in the summer to earn a little extra.

Not sure that this is the best information, but here is a guide to find an association. Looks like there is at least one in your area. There is a PDF file at this site with contact information.

Indiana Official's Association Information

Peace