I'm pleased that articles published by Officiating.com have become the subjects of threads here at The Forum.

Roland, Peter, Tee, Rich, and - of course - I have had our opinions subjected to scrutiny.

That's the purpose of "publish or perish" at University. Let's say I teach a course in Joyce at the graduate school. I fill the little darlings with MY ideas about Joyce. But to gain promotion I must be willing to share those opinions with my peers; that is, with others who are experts in the Irish novelist.

Several people have taken exception to the work of Roland Wiederaenders. Fine. But if your ideas are better, put them into an article - as he does twice a week - and send them for consideration.

Talk is cheap.

My opinion: Roland was as wrong as anyone could be when he suggested that the UIC should interfere with his partner's call at first. Several said he should wait until asked. I say the UIC has no business messing with that call ever, under any circumstance. You all know what I think about "get it right at all costs."

But Officiating.com does not censor work by its writers. We believe our readers are intelligent enough to choose what they will use in their own games.

If they aren't, there is always some wannabe here at The Forum who will set them straight, you bet.

Blaine Gallant's piece appears on Monday. He rips Roland. But Blaine ain't a wannabe, having called several national tournaments in Canada.

On another subject: Concerning the incident where the umpire forfeited the game because players left the dugout following a home run.

Point one: The home run made the score 10-2. It was not a walk-off. Play would have continued.

Point two: The umpire, Bill Cline, has been a friend for 25 years. I'm going to get him to write about the entire affair. Bill is among the most respected umpires in the entire state of North Carolina. I'm sure there's more to this story than meets the FBI.

(by the way, how does this time stamping work. I edited my this about 2 minutes after posting it, not three hours.)

[Edited by GarthB on Jul 9th, 2005 at 01:12 PM]

Well said Garth.

Peace

Deleted
 

Deleted because it was a bad idea.



[Edited by Tim C on Jul 9th, 2005 at 06:51 PM]

Carl,

I have to jump in on this one. I've published in peer reviewed academic and professional scientific journals. I have a post-graduate degree and I have a sibling who is a Ph.D. tenure track professor at a major university. Your analogy, at least from my experience, between the academic world and what goes on at Officiating.com isn't exactly congruent. In the academic world, peer reviewed journals are the norm. That is to say that your peers review your work BEFORE it ever sees the light of day. There are always revisions, sometimes minor and sometimes significant. And yes there are outright rejections as a good friend of mine had happen to him with a paper he submitted. There are cases where a paper is published that invokes criticism and others in the field write rebuttals but again there has been a peer review (as well as an editior) before the original work is published.

"Publish or perish" does exist. In fact it is a major component of tenure evaluations and securing grant monies. However, there is a much more rigid review process involved than what goes on here.


Lawrence

Garth
 

A) I totally agree, as a non-subscriber, that was thinking about joining, I now will not. I hope that alone helps the cause, but doubt it will.

B) the time stamp, you started @ 12:40pm to write the message, and edited at 1:12pm, that is a total time frame of 32 min. including writing time, proof reading and editing, seems like it could be right to me?

I'll regret this, no doubt. I always do when I reply to Benham, who as everyone knows, has an ax to grind with Officiating.com.

He says we should treat our writers like <i>Newsweek</I> or <i>Time</i>. Would editors at those magazines allow such "obviously wrong" information to be put forward? He mentioned a writer who might unfairly defame Islam. Would the Skydiving magazine allow dangerous instructions?

What nonsense!

We're not talking war or peace, life or death here. We're talking about how to cover a baseball diamond and work as a team.

Benham writes as if there is but ONE WAY to run a two-man crew. He has disciples here who constantly downgrade the part of the site that pays for their freedom to trash our magazine.

Go back and read Roland's article. You'll note that nowhere is an attempt made to say this IS the way it's done, nor even this is the way it OUGHT to be done.

It's a suggestion, one of three in the article. It's intended to provoke thought, not childish diatribes.

If you're old enough, you'll remember the resistance in the baseball world when Nick Bremigan "suggested" that with runners on first and third in a three-man crew, the third-base umpire should remain in Position C. Oh, the horror of it!

Imagine how upset I was when the NCAA joined the "get it right at all costs" club.

Imagine how happy I was when the FED adopted my suggestion that the umpires ought to announce loudly that a batter-runner was out when it was illegal for him to run to first following a third strike not caught in flight.

Benham speaks of Wiederaenders' suggestions as being "obviously incorrect." Amazing! An incorrect <i>proposal</i>? Lah, me.

I'll bet Benham was the guy who thought a pinch hitter could be charged with batting out of order.

[Edited by Carl Childress on Jul 9th, 2005 at 03:36 PM]

I had hoped to have a civil discussion about this, Carl and I believe I made that clear. However, I see you are not up to it.

I have no ax to grind with officiating.com other than to wish it were more professional. I made no personal remarks about you. The last line in your reply would indicatate that perhaps you are the one with the ax looking for a ginder.

I'll not bother to remain in this thread.

Lawrence: You misunderstood me. Perhaps I didn't say it well. When I taught at University, I became quite familiar with what you call "peer review."

That technique has nothing to do with "why" an instructor must publish or remain just an instructor. The peer review I'm talking about comes from the subscribers to the academic journal in which his "opinion" will appear.

A teacher at University who is content merely to babble on with his grad students will remain an assistant professor for life. He can't expect promotion until he submits his thoughts to equals rather than students. They're a captive audience, and his ideas will resonate with them - at least until the semester grade is in.

Of course, the editorial board of a prestigious magazine is going to look carefully at any scholarly paper. Factual errors will not be permitted. Misquotes, unsupported premises, invalid conclusions: All those would be held against the paper.

But, failing that, any well-written treatise will make it into the magazine - where the final opinion will be delivered by the author's "peers."

I regret the misunderstanding.

Anyone who's been here as long as a year knows your animus toward us.

I'll also polint out that you explictly ignored my rebuttal arguments. Well, I can understand that.

As for my remark about batting out of order, if you weren't the one who thought that in the eTeamz thread, I apologize.

[Edited by Carl Childress on Jul 9th, 2005 at 03:37 PM]

Carl,

We're on the same sheet of music now.

Thanks,

Lawrence

Twice a week? They don't call he "Article a day" Wiederlanders for nothing.

Why is more articles better? Already one person in this thread said he was thinking of suscribing, but after reading about what some articles are about, he has decided not to. There is a difference between quanity and quality.

So someone on the forum will set everyone straight if an article gives very bad advise?

Well it has already happened, everyone is on Wiederalanders. So 6 months from now, a 1st year umpire joins the forum and suscribles to Officiating.com. Now Officiating.com is better than Referee because when you sign up, you can read all of the past articles for no extra fee. So this rookie reads Rollie's article, and he dosen't know that the advise is terrible. He thinks if Carl allowed it to be published online, then it must be true. Now remember, this is 6 months in the future, the forum discussions about the article are long over. There is no one to tell the kid that Rollie is an idiot. So he goes out on the field and does this in a game. He then sends you an email asking why his partner refused to talk to him after the game. What are you gonna say? Well I knew Rollie was wrong, but I figured everyone would know that. The kid responds, "I don't really know what I am supposed to be doing. I joined officiating.com to help me become a better official, but instead it has made me worse."

Carl:

I agree with this. But you know that becasue I sent you a private e-mail with the same concerns. People should be reading off.com to be better. this articel does not do that. OTOH, my article Monday certainly will! LOL

Now, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, and we're happy to have your input. (grin) But let's get serious, now. You and I (as well as Blaine) know that Roland's suggestion is clearly not something an untrained, rookie umpire would adopt. The entire text of the article is slanted toward advanced training, advanced use of every tool that might be available.

As a trainer for about 40 years, I've called with hundreds of "true" rookies, guys who were walking out on the diamond for the first time as an umpire. In all those years, I never had a beginner try such a ploy.

On the other hand, Smitty would do it on a regular basis. It's one of the reasons I coined that term for the terrible (but experienced) umpire.

Roland made it plain that he was offering a technique one could use if we reached the point where more and more organizations insisted on GIRAAC.

And don't for a moment believe that nonsense about "I was gonna subscribe but because of this article I won't." That's a big crock of something Roland uses lots of on his farm. "Already one person said...." The Forum has around a hundred regular members, some of whom are double-dippers (same person, two handles). We're not going to run a magazine with thousands of subscribers all over the world just to please one percent of the people who post on an umpire message board.

Tee knows about internet umpires. He are one. So am I. But we who post are just a tiny drop in the bucket.

BTW: Officiating.com would be interested in any articles explaining to us what we should do to improve our product. We'd be happy to publish those pieces at our current rates. Wjy not give that a try?

How does the untrained, rookie umpire know that this is not something that he should adopt?

What does this have to do with an untrained umpire. You obviously trained him before his first game to know not to do this. But the untrained umpire who comes to Officiating.com will probally believe anything he comes across.

All I am saying is if you rejected Rollies article, which you admit does not contain good advise, you may have had one more suscriber, and you would only have to pay Rollie for 5 articles this week instead of 6. And only one person posted that they were not going to suscribe, he is not posting the same message mutiple times under different names.

Think about it, how many of your suscribers are not internet umpires? Internet umpires are a very small percentage of all umpires. But I would guess that internet umpires make up a high percentage of Officiating.com suscribers.

Your guess would be wrong. A miniscule percentage of our subscribers post to The Forum or eTeamz, the only Boards we track.

Let me repeat: We have thousands of subscribers. We have about 100 internet posters at The Forum. You do the math.

And as someone pointed out, Roland is opinionated, humorous, gregarious, eclectic, entertaining - as well as educational. His work has been widely praised by the people who count, namely our subscribers.

BTW: Are you turning down my offer to write an article explaining what we need to do to improve?

One more time: Think about it. There are as many recommendations for amateurs as there are clinicians.

Is it heel/toe? PBUC
Is it Gerry Davis? Papa C
Is it the box? American League
Is it the balanced stance? Wendlestedt
Is it the heel/toe, heel/toe? Evans
Is it the scissors? Ed Vargo, National League supervisor
Is it the knee? Doug Harvey

We've published articles advocating every stance EXCEPT the scissors.

If the voice of Officiating.com ever said: "Thou shalt do thus and so," or "Thou shalt never...," likely you'd be the one of the first to complain that we were trying to dictate mechanics. And who the hell are we to do that?

Know'm sayin'?

Finally: It's well known that when we publish controversial opinions, we offer rebuttal space to anyone willing to stand up and be counted BY NAME, not handle. I believe Tee pointed that out in an earlier thread.

It is never wrong to examine ideas. Those that are good, pass the test. Those that are not, fail.

I was unaware that Roland was widely praised. I know of a small group of posters who have not had anything good to say about his articles. I assumed that these views were widespread.

I'm goning to have to turn it down. I'm not the writing type. If I were, I would have sent you an email a while back, asking if you were looking for writers. If you really want someone to write this type of article, Garth is the man.

You've heard me say this before: The people who trash Officiating.com are <i>not</i> subscribers though, as I said in this thread, they are happy to bite the hand that feeds their freedom of speech.

Remember what your teachers said in social studies, civics, government: Those who don't vote shouldn't criticize elected officials.

Mr. Benham has repeatedly turned down offers, both public and private, to bury the hatchet and write for us again.

The right number to compare with subscribers, though, is non-posting readers of the Forum. It's a harder number to track than posters, but you can track monthly unique users. I suspect that it's considerably more than the number of posters.

In my own case, I read the forums for many months before subscribing, and only then did I post anything. I wouldn't be surprised if most subscriberes are acquired through the Forum, and that many "lurk" there for some time before subscribing.

I'll agree with Carl on this point. The structure of the article archive usually makes it clear when articles are controversial, especially when the editor can arrange a point-counterpoint in articles. (Carl sometimes does a better job within an article to warn the naive user.)

-LL

Id have to think that the majority of subscribers are not in the Roland W fan club. Im sure there are some out there, who look forward to his musings, but Id have to think that is a distinct minority.
Yes, when he first appeared, I checked out what he had to say, but after a couple weeks I stopped even seeing what his articles were about.
Why? They rarely, if at all, offered any real world advice on officiating, whether for the rookie official or the veteran.
Mostly, articles filled with his attempt to take the story, and elevate it to another level by offering analogies, or Shakesperean verbage, or vocabulary taken straight from Jeopardy.
What did it for me was the article having to do with "unborn preborn, yet born, over born, past born,"or whatever it was. I kept going on through the article looking for the connection. It never came. No play, no situation. Nothing. It just ended.
Cant believe he got paid for that, or even more, we pay for it.
I think its a case of needing articles to keep the baseball section consistently publishing. And he is the one submitting.
And Carl, if someone disagrees, the answer it not always for them to write their own article. Some dont want to write, some dont like to write. Some just want to subscribe.
And yes Im sure there are those out there who look forward to Roland's articles. There is always one the next day.

<i> Originally posted by Carl Childress </i>

<b> We're not talking war or peace, life or death here. We're talking about how to cover a baseball diamond and work as a team. </b>

Papa C IMO the aforementioned says it all. Baseball is a GAME and as we have found out there is NO ONE accepted way of umpiring.

We have had huge debates over such things as:

Uncaught 3rd strike less than 2 outs and B1 starts to run.
Do we say Nothing or do we
Signal the out sign and say batter is out.

Then there was the infamous balk call that ended the game.

We could go on and on meaning there is NO accepted way of doing things.

As with most publications, it boils down to which writing style or author one likes best.

There are those that read anything Hemmingway has ever written and there are those that wouldn't read the cliff note version.

As for me Not to suck up but I enjoy your articles as well as those of Jon Bible.

Why!

I think both you and Jon give ALL views (including your own) on a certian subject matter and allow the reader to decide for him/herself.

In addition I also learn from some of the articles especially Jon's article on calling balls/strikes in which he stated that he treated the strike zone as a "window" which made his job as PU easier.

Perhaps you can alure Jon from referee where IMO would make a great addition to the staff.

In addition, it's much easier to take advice from an author who has umpired at every level from HS all the way to the BIGS.

In Summary as with any publication there are those articles which one will have no use for but there are many which one will. Also, the writing style and author also alure subscribers as well.

Pete Booth

Thank goodness!
 

Nothing wrong with allowing the writers to write what they want; however, as you stated above, the article by Roland was completely a "bad" move by an umpiring crew.

I read Blaine's article, and thanks goodness someone had time to write a rebuttal. And Blaine did a very good job.

The papers and magazines that I choose to read are full of articles that I don't read, or I don't agree with; however, in the context of being a site that is supposed to help officials, there needs to be and often times there is a view from the "other side."

Without, I could see a young umpire who might just take the "bad" advice and actually apply it to their game and end up in big trouble.

Thanks
David

Generally, I have found Roland Wiederaender's articles somewhat overflowered, with too many sidebars. However, I would have never known this unless I read them. By the same token, I would have never known that I dislike grits as much as I do, without trying them.

I do not subscribe to his proposed method of "getting it right" in the games I officiate however, he clearly indicated his intentions for it's use, "The games in which this can be done are mostly summer, kid-ball games although it might be workable in early season JV games."

Now I know that the methods, mechanics and rule interpretations discussed on this forum, generally are according to "Hoyle." Rightfully so. But, as each and everyone of us have experienced out on the field one time or another, "Hoyle" does'nt always play in all the games we do. In fact, "****happens" seems to pop his ugly head,
more times then we would like, I'm sure. And for those of you out there that can honestly say "I have never done anything like that," well, you have'nt officiated much.
I am sure we have all resorted to things not perscribed by "Hoyle."

I don't believe Carl got this much attention when he proposed semi-permanent parking in the "B" position.

Tradition, is sometimes just a hard thing to break for some. We have already discussed this to nauseaum, under "getting it right." And when were out on that field, the method we use, that gets us through that particular game and is agreeable to all, may not be according to "Hoyle" but, if it works, its the best method used for that game, that place and that time.

I'm still trying to break the barrier of wearing long pants during those "Hot, Dog Days of Summer." !!!???

Just my opinion.

My thanks to Carl for offering to present a "defense" vs an opinion/suggestion that not even he agrees with...dissent is good for America and should be tolerated with honor.

Now for a brief response to Carl and all who disagree with my humble suggestion of how to handle a newbie umpire who screws the pooch on a pulled foot at first base, who is not using the best of "foot" "ball" mechanics.

1. Always have an attitude of helping out those who are less experienced than you....off field is good, on field can be helpful if tolerable/situational.

2. Don't let your social conservative knee jerk responsive attitude get in your way of seeing that suggestions are just that....something to think about, not reject immediately as patently wrong [and join the Muslim Mujahadeen attitude].

3. Get a life! If the opportunity to help a fellow ummpire presents itself, don't hang him out to dry. Too many "Carls" and "gurus" and "hard *** teachers" will perform an on field crucifixiion of their partner and say after the game to themselves, "too bad, poor sap, he deserved what he got for being such a dumb ***"......

4. Compassion conquers the consequences of a bad call which can be made right.

5. Please remember, I don't really care what anyone, including Carl, thinks about my suggestions/oppinions, because I don't need to do this **** to make a living or to make a competent and consistently good reputation as an umpire. I can quit and not feel the least bit hurt by anyone's difference of oppinion with mine. I live by my own rules, not by someone who thinks they's like to teach me new ones.

Thanks for listening....thanks for the $ for the article...play ball

Roland, who doesn't like to write on the Forum anyways

RE: paragraph #2....a difference of opinion makes someone an Islamic terrorist?



you need to lay off the Starbucks, pronto.

So you don't care that every article you write is straight crap? Since everyone hates your writings, why would you not try to change your writing style, in the hope of your articles becoming better?

Your writings make you look incompetent.

Noble concepts- in any sport.

Completely idiotic application recommended by you- in any sport.

Worst advice possible- in any sport.

Hey, you are getting paid though, as you said. You've got one thing going for you anyway. One.

I am a paid member. I pay for the articles because I can order books or post to the forum for free. So the more articles, the better.

Roland is sometimes funny and sometimes full of you know what. So are some of the other article writers, just not as often as Roland. I can normally distinguish between good advice and bullsh*t.

I don't care about future readers who read the archives and don't know any better.

I once wrote a semi-rebuttal to an article. It has been my only article to date. Anyone can do likewise. Since Roland's articles get published I imagine any rebuttal would also.

This ain't Newsweek, it's closer to Mad Magazine.

You can order books and post to the forum for free, without being a paid subscriber.

I "can order books and post to the forum for free". Sounds familiar, it's almost the same as "can order books or post to the forum for free".

[Edited by DG on Jul 11th, 2005 at 11:14 PM]

So it is some kid's fault when he takes Wiederenelenders' bad advise?

How about Rollie stops writing terrible articles. No one would notice if Officiating.com didn't put out a baseball article on a day when it was supposed to. If Wiederalnders wants to write crap, then he should not be paid for it. It makes me mad that I am actually paying to read his articles. Someone should be paying me to read anything he writes. His articles wouldn't be interesting if they contained photos of naked women. The only reason anyone reads Wiederlander's articles is so we can discuss how terrible they are.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by LDUB

Quote:

How about Rollie stops writing terrible articles. No one would notice if Officiating.com didn't put out a baseball article on a day when it was supposed to. If Wiederalnders wants to write crap, then he should not be paid for it. It makes me mad that I am actually paying to read his articles. Someone should be paying me to read anything he writes. His articles wouldn't be interesting if they contained photos of naked women. The only reason anyone reads Wiederlander's articles is so we can discuss how terrible they are.

Be so mad about Roland's articles that you stop paying and stop posting, total boycott.

The Vote is in:
 

DG wins this one hands down.

I am also becoming tired of the issue.

While Roland's defense of his detractors was silly.

One can only go to the same well so often.

Can we move on?

I'm with Tee and DG as well. Leave it be. You payed for the site prior to Roland coming on here. You got an article or two per week. Now that he's on here, you still get those one or two other articles a week plus his. If you like his, then you're better off, if you don't, then you're no worse off.

-Josh

I am worse off. If Wiederlanders did not write, then Carl would be forced to find something to fill the void. Pretty much anything would better than Wiederlanders. When I paid for my suscription, I was paying to be able to read X number of articles a week. Wiederlanders is taking up 3 or so of those articles a week with his bad writings. So the way I see it, I lost 3 articles, instead of gained them.

Hmmm,
 

It seems that some have misinterpreted my post above:

I thought that DG meant that LDUB should stop reading or posting. (i.e. this means leave the site).

I agreed with him that this thread is silly and way boooooring! and should end.

That is my only point. I am tired of hearing of the dissatisfaction of a few posters. We only know for sure that LDUB is the only "subscriber" that is complaining about Roland's articles.

Y'all can complain all you want.

It is damn hard to write GOOD articles time-after-time when those writing are not professional authors.

You guys have great complaints, written in a sentence or a paragraph. The writers that publish here have a tough uphill battle and write for reason other than the money.

Re: Re: Hmmm,
 

..does that hold true for umpiring as well? :D

OK,
 

George C. Scott in "The Hustler":

"Where's My MONEY!!!!!"

Much more current venacular.

Re: Hmmm,
 

Some will miss an obvious suggestion.