plate mechanic
 

As all of us who have officiated for more than a few years know that accepted mechanics change from time to time. Everything from plate umpire positioning behind the dish to responsibilities on the bases has seen modification.

The editor of this site has maintained (I believe) that there is no good reason to "explain" a pitch. You know, like "Ball - outside!" I've noticed over the past few years that there are D1 and Pro Umpires that are doing just that, especially on a close pitch. I've changed after a zillion years on a baseball field and feel it has helped keep some coaches in check. I don't get the "where was that pitch?" comment anymore.

Carl has argued that you don't expalin a strike so why a ball? The simple answer is that explaining a strike is not a preventive device. You saw a strike - no one cares where. On the other hand if you saw a close pitch that was down, the pitcher, his catcher and his coach care, and in fact so does the batter. "Explaining" that pitch just might keep a coach, pitcher or catcher in the game. From my experience it certainly helps limit the barking from the dugoutand frankly it's that's number one on my list for the mechanic.

What say you?

I say I don't like the idea. Personally I don't think we need to editorialize each close pitch that we call a ball. First we'll be saying "ball - outside", then the rat is going to want a measurement on how far outside the pitch was. Was it outside by an inch? Two?

Then there's the argument that this will lead to more confrontations than it's worth. For example, you call a pitch a ball that's low out of the zone and tell the coach that's where it missed. Now, for the rest of the game he'll be snipping that every low strike you call against his team hit the same spot that you previously called a ball for his pitcher.


Tim.

I have never 'announced' the location of a ball, although sometimes if it was verrrry close and the call obviously surprised the catcher, I will quietly tell him where it was, just to pre-empt the inevitable question....

I never editorialize my calls behind the dish. If a coach asks (without screaming at me) I'll tell him a couple of times but won't let him ask on every pitch outside the zone. I'll usually quietly tell the catcher "A little up/down in/out and I'll get that one," if its really close.
IMO, ball-low or something similar just invites more comments.

Hmmm,
 

I have followed the emerging mechanic of MLB guys . . .

When a pitch is very close AND important I give the description of where I called the miss.

Remember, for decades, we were trained to give "subtle" signals for ALL calls of "BALL."

To me, giving the description immediately stops: "where was that BLUE?"

To each their own . . .

Regards,

I agree whole heartedly with T. I have heard many of the big league umps announcing the location of a ball. I have been doing it for several years now without a problem. I joined a new association a couple of years ago (I have been umpiring 26 years) and went to one of their training sessions. When going to the pitching machine station, the instructor stated emphatically that you should never give the location of a pitch when calling it a ball. When one of the other newbies asked if he should answer a coach if the coach asked him where the pitch was, the instructor told him sure, as long as it's done politely and not on every pitch. When I then asked why not say it on the pitch and avoid the question, I was not given any logical explanation. In my experience, it has greatly reduced the amount of conversation that takes place between me, the pitcher, the catcher, and the coach. Those that choose to argue after I make the call were going to argue anyway.

Chris Wright

What's good for the goose
 

What happens at the MLB level is not always good for the amatuer umpire. How many of us have been to a school/camp/clinic with a big league guy who tells us, "Do X." You say, "But Mr. Crawford/Hallion/Welke, I have seen you do Y." To which he inevitably says, "I'm teaching you the RIGHT way, which is not necessarily what I do."

I think explaining a pitch is not smart at any level below MLB, and since I don't work there, I'm just going to keep saying "ball" until somebody tells me differently.

Strikes and outs!

Last night in my previously mentioned horrific Pony game, on a pitch that was about 6 inches outside, the little rat catcher, who was pulling every bad pitch and holding it as a cockshot, did it again, and his coach asked him where the pitch was. The little rat told him "it was right there!" I said, in a voice loud enough for all to hear, "don't you lie to him, boy! You tell him where it really was! You know it was outside, that's why you pulled it a foot!"

Later in the game, this same catcher pulled a pitch that was close to a foot outside back to the middle of the plate and held it there for about 5 or 6 seconds. I told him, also loudly so his coach would hear, "if you do that one more time, you're gone, and then your team, which is ahead by 7 runs, will forfeit the game, because you will be down to 8 players. Do you understand?"

He quit pulling pitches after that. Fortunately the 2:10 time limit saved me after 5 of the longest innings I can remember.

BTW, I just needed to vent. Thanks for your patience.:)

I editorialize, within limits. Instead of saying "ball," I will use the following verbals:

That's low (or down).
That's up.
That missed.
Nope.

as well as the traditional "ball" for probably half the balls I call.

I think my editorializing habit helps me a bit with my timing, and I know it keeps me more relaxed and comfortable behind the plate. I think catchers speak my language pretty consistently and I very rarely have a catcher or a rat peppering me with "where was that."

Works for me.

One final caveat - I'm talking ONLY verbals. I would never, ever, editorialize a ball with a hand motion. That looks ridiculous.

Few years back- tourney meeting. Getting some of the last-minute questions out of some of the new guys. One of the newest, youngest guys asks "is it okay to tell them where the ball is? like, ball, high, or outside?" Guys tell him "that's up to you, but don't use your hands to indicate it", crazy old grizzled ump adds "I'll tell you what, you can always do what I do- I call ball, and then let him know where it was by motioning my head in that direction"!:eek:
So we grabbed the kid and got him out of that conversation!
Incidently, to keep him from spreading that gem around, we threw the old guy a surprise retirement party the next season!


Bainer

If a coach asks where it was after I call BALL I ignore him, or I might give him a look over. If a catcher asks I tell him. If he say's "was that outside?" I tell him yes since he already knows. If it barely missed I probably say so, for catcher reference. I will work with a catcher.

Any border pitch that the catcher snatches back to the zone is a BALL.

i only call 'ball' or 'strike'. if a pitcher misses inside a few times, or is hitting just below the knee, ill tell the catcher "thats a bit down" or "bring it in a bit" but i dont say it for the whole world to hear.

SDS, I've thanked catchers for pulling pitches back into the zone. When they ask me why I reply, "When you pull the pitch back like that it tells me that YOU think it's a ball. That makes my job easier."

It usually stops after that.

"thanks for showing me that one was a ball, i wasnt even paying attention"

I've used those as well, but this guy was just pissing me off big time, and the game really sucked, and I was not a happy camper when he started lying to his coach. I am surprised the pitcher got any strikes, because the catcher pulled everything, even corners that I gave him. He thought I was some rube who was buying his little act, and I just got a bit frustrated with his antics. I think the problem was that his coach thought the pitches were where he was holding the ball, like he couldn't see him pulling them.

This is notoriously our worst league, and is pure ghetto ball all the way. Dirt infield, holes for each batter, the catcher, and the umpire, and only given two baseballs to last the whole game, by order of the league president. They are ruined after about 3 innings.

More venting, I digress.

Sometimes on the close outside pitch or inside pitch, I have the habit of calling ball and moving my head left or right, so everyone knows, if they are paying close enough attention, where I thought it was (as opposed to high or low). Lots of MLB umps do this.

Contrary to what Bainer posted about ol' Smitty, ol' Smitty was right. There is nothing wrong with this, and you are right, many MLB umpires, as well as MiLB, D-1, 2, 3, JUCO, HS, and Adult Baseball umpires do as well, at least in this country. They only do it on in and out, not up and down. The rats can see up and down from their cages.

It is by far preferable to announcing verbally where a pitch is. It should not be an exaggerated thing, just a slight movement, well after (about a 2 count) you have called "Ball." If you do it too soon, it looks as if you tracked the pitch with your head instead of your eyes.

I'm with you LMan. My mechanics exactly.

Now, I know there are lots of umpires at all levels, that will look to the side where a pitch was outside (can't see that from the dugout), as an indication of where it missed, which I think is fine. But there is NO need to indicate if a pitch was High or Low, as you can see that from the dugout.

normally i'd agree with this, but i had a coach who was whining about high/low and apparently wasn't paying attention at least on this particular pitch....F1 lets one loose and its easily 2 feet above the batters head, but it makes a sweet sounding, loud pop into F2s glove (the sound associated with a 'good' pitch to some). everyone in the park who was looking even out of the corner of their eye knew this ball was 8 feet off the ground...but that coach yells out "come on! tell me where that missed! are you even watching?" one of his assistants goes "tom, just shut the hell up please. you look like more of an idiot now. lets watch the game."

It's a big country.
 

I think you are mistaken about this as it relates to your geography. I have only seen one umpire working at any of those levels engage in this practice and that was Saturday night (American Legion). In fact I didn't understand what he was doing until I read this thread.

So the point is this, the country is a big place and I know of no college umpires who engage in this practice. In fact, I have never heard or seen it taught.

(Caveat, I do not work JUCO or Adult Baseball. Generally the pool of umpires is the same, however.)

Quote:

What say you?

[/QUOTE]
It's a matter of preference. it's not a right / wrong answer. It's what works best for you.

With the exception of high quality baseball I would not recommend it.

Why!

Depending upon the nature of the game your strike zone may change and a pitch you called a ball and verbalized outside may now be a strike because of the way the game is progressing.

Another drawback of verbalizing location is when you "Miss it" No matter how good of a plate person you are, no one gets evey pitch correct. Therefore what are you going to say when you missed it.

Generally speaking I do not verbalize location. In addition that is the accepted practice in the association for which I work.

Pete Booth

Depending upon the nature of the game your strike zone may change and a pitch you called a ball and verbalized outside may now be a strike because of the way the game is progressing.



Since when does the progression of the game decide a strike zone ?. Yes, we all make mistakes, but I really try to keep a consistant zone ALL GAME LONG.

Oh, I see a long and disturbing thread brewing -- maybe as heated as the "strike" in the dirt grazing the edge of the zone thread we had not long ago.

Wandering zones aside (which I don't subscribe to, BTW), I add myself to the list of those who announces on close pitches inside/outside (never high/low). The dugouts can see high/low, and if they ask me on these, they're sniping, and I say so. In/out, on the other hand, can't be seen from the side. Everyone's happier, it seems, if everyone knows where a pitch missed. And I like happy -- especially when it's me!

I have no quarrel one way or the other relative to announcing inside or outside, but I do have a comment as to sniping.
As a coach, you don't have to be very smart to figure why a pitch was called a ball. If a coach sees the ball is not hi or lo then he knows it is inside or outside, that's perfectly logical. Based on the catchers position and glove placement no coach is going to confuse an outside pitch with an inside pitch.

My point
It's sniping either way!

99% of the time the coach knows the answer in/out hi/lo before he asks the question. He's only asking to make a point and if he's inclined to make a point he'll make it one way or the other.

After the top of the first tonight I hear an assistant tell the manager that I am calling a ball and a half off the plate a strike so tell the batters to swing at that pitch. And at that point in the game I don't think I had called anything that was off the black. Simply amazing how well coaches can call 'em from the dugout.

Probably just trying trying to get them up swinging on pitches they can reach on the outer half of the plate. God bless him. Rather umpire a game where I don't have to call anyone out on strikes, and the teams are at very minimum attempting to put the ball in play.

My take on this is that if you have established a good zone in the first couple of innings, and are CONSISTENT calling it, the catcher will usually take care of you concerning letting the coach know where the pitch was. If he lies to him, I "clean" the already clean plate while letting the catcher know that I don't appreciate him crossing me up. They usually get the point!

Really, with a consistent zone coupled with 99 out 100 catchers, I don't need to announce the location of a ball because the catcher will do that for me. EVEN on very close pitches, the catcher will usually defend my call to the coach.

I found that if the coach and catcher aren't visibly disturbed by my call, the fans shut up too.

So really, the key is the call a consistent, good zone.

Catcher - "It was right there."
 

On the few occasions where the catcher has told that coach that a pitch that was clearly outside of the zone was "right there" I've called time, come around to clean the plate and have told the catcher in a voice loud enough for the coach to hear, "You're not doing yourself, your pitcher or your coach any favors by telling him that THAT pitch was a strike. Understand?"

I've only had to do this twice and each time it was effective. Of course, we're talking youth games. The bigger guys know better.

Watching the Astros/Twins game right now, and noticing three things about HP umpire Jeff Kellogg:

1) he turns his head to indicate location in/out on borderline pitches, which is what I do also.

2) he tucks his slot hand behind his thigh, which is what I do also.

3) he puts his other hand on the back of the catcher, which I have never, ever, done.

If you were being evaluated by NCAA standards, and you kept your same strike zone in a lpsided game, you would get dinged for keeping that zone. http://www1.ncaa.org/membership/cham...PreviewState=0

Also, you can see in those standards too that the Gerry Davis stance is totally discouraged! I agree with that one for sure!!!

But it also says:

Maintains the same zone throughout the game.

and

Is the same for both teams from inning 1 to inning 9.

So, what do they expect you to do exactly in lopsided games?

You adjust your zone, evenly, for both teams!

My interpretation that seems to work is to go a tad higher and wider. Not much, just a couple of inches.

Those other standards you listed are for regular games, NOT lopsided games. But in the lopsided game, you need to expand a bit to keep things going.

We have a lot of D III around here, and the pitching isn't so hot, so the games tend to have a LOT of runs. :( Anyway, I have found that is blowouts, neither coach seems to mind if you expand your zone a little bit, as long as it goes both ways.

A tip I got years ago, I still use. On an obvious ball you really don't have to call it. When it's close but still considerably out say ball loud enough for catcher, batter and anyone close to hear. When it is real close say BALL as in "I'm sure of it". I don't explain where they were, but you can tell by the loudness of the call how close it was. And as I mentioned earlier, I will explain them to the catcher if he asks, but not to the bench.

I call ball, even if the pitcher throws it over the back stop. But, I agree that on a "close" pitch, you need to make it more emphatic. I suppose that is why I don't get a lot of questioning on my ball calls. I hear groaning sometimes though! :D

Isn't it funny that the same pitches that they groan at when you call them balls, are the same pitches they would boo you if you called them strikes when their team was batting?

Goes without saying! ;)

I disagree with the concept of calling "close" balls more emphatically. To me and many of the rats I've observed, It conveys exactly the opposite message to "he's confident in that call." It's more of a "wow that was close; it was so close I better call it loud and emphatically; damn that was close; hmmm, I wonder why the pitcher's looking at me like that; maybe I should have called it a strike...."

You are welcomed to think that way. But that kind of thinking goes against just about every umpiring mechanics training I have received.

In my personal experience, I have found that it sells the call a LOT better, and people have told me that it actually shows MORE confidence in the call. It is akin to calling close plays on the bases more emphatically.

Anyway, if your local evaluators don't see any value in adjusting how much emphasis you use on calls that are obvious or close, then go ahead and call everything the same. But I am about 99.9% sure that your local evaluators would be more impressed with your calling close "ball" calls more emphatically.

What's a local evaluator? I'm so glad I don't have to put up with someone consistently second-guessing my officiating.

Just so you know I umpired a 38-0 NCAA Division 1 game (both teams Division 1). After the game the evaluator said (and this is a quote, not a paraphrase), "damn, son, you had the same strike zone the entire game. That was a hell of a game you had."

Also, for the rest of that season, several umpires came up to me and said, "I saw (the evaluator) recently, he went on and on about how consistent you were."

It was the best damn evaluation I ever had.

So I guess it depends on which evaluator you have.

When the team who is behind puts up 6 runs in the seventh inning, do you then "adjust" it back in for the 8th and 9th innings?

Well that's what it says!
 

Perhaps you should ask the person(s) who wrote the NCAA Evaluation Standards, since he/she/they wrote this as one of the criteria:

"Has a grasp of how the zone can be adjusted in lopsided game."

I don't think that anybody considers a 6 run deficit to be "lopsided." Lopsided is usually 10 runs or more behind.

And maybe lawump had a big strike zone to start with, and couldn't have widened it out more than it already was. How about it, lawump?:)

I think left coast was tralking about a game where a team was behind by 10 or 12 and then they score six runs in the seventh are you going to adjust your zone back for the eighth or ninth inning?

Once you widen, you cannot go back. Its done.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm... I am not sure how to take that statement. Evaluators don't "second guess" MY officiating. I suppose somebody that is not secure in the job they are doing could feel that way by some of their comments though.

And watching the Padres/Mariners game tonight, I noticed Greg Gibson putting his hands all over the catchers' backs, but other than that, his mechanics were spot on.

What's the deal with the hands on the catchers? I never understood the attraction. Is it to keep from losing balance? Does anybody out there do this? We heard from all the former catchers who seem pretty grossed out by it. Inquiring minds want to know!

Well, after one of my minor league games in 1997...as I was taking a shower, my Dad was waiting for me outside our locker room, and he started talking to one of the team's pitching coaches, Bob Stanley.

After Bob asked my Dad who he was with (and my dad said the umpire), Bob cracked a joke. He said, "If your son was umpiring 10 years ago, I'd still be in the major leagues!":D