Babe Ruth

[wobster]

I got contracted for my first babe ruth game last night. I have a few questions....

I have been told that babe ruth uses FED rules, but I thought I saw on here that they used modified OBR. Which is it?

How big is your strike zone with this age? I was thinking about an inch and a 1/2 on the outside, none on the inside, nothing high, and at the tops of the knees. Sound Good? Too Big? Too Small?

Thanks guys.

[His High Holiness]

Originally posted by wobster
I got contracted for my first babe ruth game last night. I have a few questions....

I have been told that babe ruth uses FED rules, but I thought I saw on here that they used modified OBR. Which is it?

How big is your strike zone with this age? I was thinking about an inch and a 1/2 on the outside, none on the inside, nothing high, and at the tops of the knees. Sound Good? Too Big? Too Small?

Thanks guys.

Wobster;

Babe Ruth runs from age 13 to 19. The size of the strike zone depends a lot on the age. (I give an inch and a half at the NCAA level on the outside. At NCAA, I also try to give an inch on the inside.) When I did Babe Ruth, it was 3 inches inside, 6 inches outside, nothing at the knees and up to the armpits. I made it slightly smaller for the older ones.

ALL Babe Ruth leagues are supposed to use OBR but I am sure that there is a ba$tardized version of Babe Ruth somewhere that might use FED. Ask your partner or ask at the plate conference.

Babe Ruth has several safety and participation rules but since I no longer do Babe Ruth, I cannot remember all of them. Some are:

Malicious contact, 10 man batting order, reentry, second visit to pitcher eliminates player as pitcher, no tobacco.

Peter

[Edited by His High Holiness on Jun 24th, 2004 at 08:40 AM]

[jicecone]

Originally posted by wobster
I got contracted for my first babe ruth game last night. I have a few questions....

I have been told that babe ruth uses FED rules, but I thought I saw on here that they used modified OBR. Which is it?

How big is your strike zone with this age? I was thinking about an inch and a 1/2 on the outside, none on the inside, nothing high, and at the tops of the knees. Sound Good? Too Big? Too Small?

Thanks guys.

Until your daytime job is officiating baseball and they dictate exactly how big or small your strike zone should be, MAKE IT BIG. But stay consistant. Usually, the more strikes you call early gets them swinging the bat and that helps to take you out of the game latter. Usually.

If it doesn't and the game goes by faster and you stay consistant, two things will usually happen: 1. It probably was a good game and 2. You will be considered as having done a good job. Whats so bad with that?

A Bigger Zone is ALWAYS better in my opinion.

[jumpmaster]

BR baseball should not be using FED rules. They do use a modified OBR code. You can check out the website. If you register as a national umpire they send you a rule book and you have to take an open book test.

http://www.baberuthleague.org

[wobster]

I will talk to the league ops for babe ruth around here, but I am sure that our league is a ba$tardized one.

This league is 14-15 (not 13-15 like it should be)so I will adjust my strike zone as follows:

1-2 inches inside, 3-4 outside, pits to knees. Sound good?

[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by wobster


How big is your strike zone with this age? I was thinking about an inch and a 1/2 on the outside, none on the inside, nothing high, and at the tops of the knees. Sound Good? Too Big? Too Small?

The strike zone is that which is accepted by our customers meaning the leagues / associations we serve.

My advice since this is a NEW league is to go and watch some of your bretheren and see what their Zone is.


I'll give you an example; I umpired my first CBL game approx 6 yrs. ago. My first game behind the dish, I heard all kinds of chirping from both teams about the zone. One batter (in a nice way not derogatory) did me a favor and said "Common Blue this isn't JV.

From then on I adjusted the zone until it was ACCEPTED. By Accepted I don't mean individuals will be happy when they get punched out on strike three, but in general you do not hear Contstant complaints from your over-all game.

Also, No one likes a "postage" for a zone so forget about calling the MLB zone even in upper ball because you will be there all day.

In Summary, go watch a couple of games before you umpire in this league to get an idea of what the accepted zone is and keep it there.

Pete Booth

[DG]

It depends on the level of talent, and what the league wants. Some don't have the talent, and want a bigger zone. I do some good Babe Ruth games around here, and I call an inch all the way around, and remember, any part of the ball can pass through the zone, which means even that inch can look like more since the edge of the ball is all that has to pass through. And also, even the MLB rule says the low part of the zone is the hollow beneath the knee, not the top of the knee, so take your zone down about 4-5 inches from where you have been if you are calling the top of the knee. For tournament games I call pitches by the book.