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Fall Ball Sportsmanship
Game yesterday, Fall 13-14 yr old league with FED modified to shorter base paths and plate distance. My son's team just clobbering the other team. Our coach tells the team to go station to station with no steals even on a passed ball and then tells them to go to wood bats only.
He had players in new positions and politely asked the plate umpire if he wouldn't mind expanding the strike zone when our team was at bat to give the other outmatched pitchers a fighting chance. I was impressed with this display of sportmanship in these days of win at all costs coaches and parents. My question is have you ever been approached by a coach to do that to his own team and what did you do? Our umpire was extremely consistant it's just that the other kids had little chance in this game. |
Yes. And I refused. To change the strike zone is wrong. What do you do if the losing team makes a come-back? Change it back? Be consistent, <b>PERIOD</b>
Bob |
If a game gets that far out of hand, I usually expand it on my own.
I had a BR 16-18 post season game that was 18-2 in the second inning. By the fourth inning, nobody wanted to be there, nocoaches, no umpires, no players, no parents.... NOBODY! At that point, the players aren't paying attention and, IMO, it becomes unsafe. I do my best to move the game along. |
I have gone to both coaches in a blowout or two and suggested opening up the zone, for BOTH teams. No coach has disagreed yet, as long as the zone was the same for both.
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I can't believe what I am reading here! You all talk about never "injecting yourselves into the game" but that is just what you are doing here! If you people were in my charge, I would never give you another assignment! You should be ashamed of yourselves!
:mad: :mad: |
A differing opinion ...................
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Both coaches indicated to me that they would not be unhappy if the strike zone were expanded so that thye would get finished and on their way more quickly. I said yes. Big mistake. Fourth pitch of game, off.coach starts b!tch!ing about my zone. Next half-inning, other coach b!tches about zone. Long story short, ended up dumping both managers and one assistant. Never, ever again. |
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*shrug* oh well. Part of the perils of being me. |
[He had players in new positions and politely asked the plate umpire if he wouldn't mind expanding the strike zone when our team was at bat to give the other outmatched pitchers a fighting chance.[/QUOTE]
I would politely say "no, just tell your batters to swing away"...And in my area, we have mercy rules, so the game may drag on, but will end in a timely manner, without my "insertions".... |
oops, I mean "injections"
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Ah, I see the ole black & white absolutists are out again. :rolleyes:
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He had players in new positions and politely asked the plate umpire if he wouldn't mind expanding the strike zone when our team was at bat to give the other outmatched pitchers a fighting chance.
I have a problem with The aforementioned. Why ask Blue to shorten the game? If the game is that bad, why not approach the opposing coach and ask him if he wants to call it quits. IMO, that's why it's important to have a Mercy Rule. Once the game does not resemble baseball anymore, it's time to stop. If the coach who is getting clobbered does not want to end the game then unfortunately we have to. I am not going to stand back there all day long in a blow-out game when managers pitch kids who haven't pitched before or worse yet have an untrained F2 where you are playing dodge ball behind the dish. Trying kids at different positions etc. is for practice not game time. In Summary: your sons team coach should have approached the opposing coach and had him agree to stop the game. Pete Booth |
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My answer is always NO! I hate those one sided games or games with lots of walks too but I'm not going to change how I work to accommodate a teams lack of talent or lack of coaching. With all that said, my zone is 'bigger' at the start of the little guy games than when I'm doing an Adult League game loaded with former college / pro players. |
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I don't care if it is Fall-ball, Summer-ball, or Spring-ball. Changing the strike zone as ctblu40 and LMAN suggest is Fool's-ball. There is nothing that you can say to convince me, gentlemen. You two (and anyone else that does this) should hang up your uniforms and never darken the baseball diamond again. An umpire is supposed to be unbiased. At least that's the way it's supposed to be. So by the same token, if it's a tie game do you guys shrink the strike zone to help the batters? Come on, you guys are BS! Please don't embarrass yourselves by responding any further. Take your sorry a$$es and burn your uniforms. You make the rest of us sick! :mad: |
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I assume that you work both NCAA and HS baseball (just from your posts). If this is the case, are you telling me that your zone for a Big East game is the same as it is for a Shoreline Conference game? Or worse yet East Haven JV vs Guilford JV? Please... an umpire must be able to call an accepted/ expected zone! If he can't (or won't) he better stick to 1 level or the other. There is a time and a place to adjust your strike zone... if you don't know that by now, you'll never stop working those 25-2, 3.5 hour games... enjoy! |
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Further more, you are going off the subject trying to defend yourself. We are talking about changing the zone during the friggen game! Of course the strike zone is different from NCAA to JV to LL but you never, ever change your zone knowingly during a game! You might as just well say, "okay, you guys suck so they win". And one more thing, it is quite obvious that you may be in my association and if you are, please identify yourself at our first meeting of the new season. This way I can make sure that Arnie or Tony never assign us together! I'm done with this! |
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What Dave Hensley said in the post above mine. Don't tell anyone, but I may have even called someone out in a 30-0 youth game at first base on a really close play where the BR may not have actually been out. Guess what? Life goes on and most teams up 30-0 understand and to heck with those that don't. Oh, I can hear the violins playing. Wahhhh wahhhh wahhh. |
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Ozzy, IMO you are missing the point on this one. The first question? Why are we there in the first place? Answer: To make certain that one team does not gain an UNFAIR advantage not intended by the rules over another. When the score is rediculous, how does changing the zone give one team an unfair advantage over another. Most kids in a blow-out game have already batted a "zillion" times. When I played and we were getting blown out I wanted no part of the game. It was time to go back to practice and get ready for the next game. No-one, The coaches, parents etc. want to be there when the score is lopsided, especially on those cold days. Also, nothing good comes out of it. As I stated in my original response, IMO the onus should be on the coaches to stop the game (absent any kind of mercy rule). IMO, we are not "cheating" when we change the zone because the score is out of hand. Also, the game is for the participants not US so if our CLIENTS want us to change the zone and get the game over with, then we abide. They are the ones "paying the freight" Also, we are talking about a BLOWOUT game not a game in which one team is up by say 7-8 runs in the early innings where the other team has a chance to come-back. By Blow-out we are talking about a team who is winning by some 15 runs and if they kept playing hard could easily be up by 30 or more. Pete Booth |
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In your own words, "As I stated in my original response, IMO the onus should be on the coaches to stop the game (absent any kind of mercy rule)." Let the coaches deal with it! So in my words, anyone and I mean ANYONE that does this is horse$hit! Finis |
Ozzy, they do it all the time in spring training games in MLB. They call runners out when they are 2 steps past the base, they expand the strike zone, the don't call balks, etc. They try to speed the games up, especially in the Cactus League, where it's hotter than blazes all the time, and the games are lopsided.
The players and coaches all understand this, and they appreciate the service. These games are scheduled for 9 innings, and there is no mercy rule available. They can't just agree to stop the game, they have to play it out. The only ones who can mercifully speed them up is the umpires. |
How come you keep saying you are 'done with this' yet you keep responding with the same argument?
You are of course entitled to your POV but shouting it over and over doesn't change anything on either side. Your overbearing legalism on this rather small area of game management is puzzling to me, to say the least. I work with umpires who feel as you do, but they don't threaten excommunication because of it. :rolleyes: Sure, there are some risks inherent in the strategy. There's risk in every game-management decision we make. That's for each umpire to assess and act accordingly, which is why 'not everyone can umpire.' :D |
I've been asked, sportingly, to do this 3 times. Twice I said No, and told him just to tell his kids to swing the bat.
The other time, it was at the plate conference, and it was both coaches. The game was the final game before playoffs and the same night as some sort of Senior Night at the high school, so most of the players were "Varsity for a day" types. Seeding for both teams was set already, and this game was essentially playing out the string. Both teams planned on putting in a new pitcher each inning, one who had never pitched. I told them I was not going to get ridiculous, but that I was going to explore the edges of the zone and take "extra consideration" to the fact that the ball was arcing (like you might in a 10U softball game, for example, where the arc makes the 3rd dimension of the strike zone a living breathing thing). Didn't call anything horribly bad a strike, but if it was hittable, it was a strike. No complaints either way. |
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I open the zone up for both teams, so I don't understand how this is cheating. And yes, I sometimes change the zone during the game, I would bet that most good amature umpires do. And believe me, if I had the power to say "You guys suck and they win," and end a lopsided game I would do so in a heartbeat! I'll bet the participants wouldn't be all that upset either! You're getting pretty worked up over a game management style that you don't agree with... keep calm, the sun will still rise tomorrow! Sheesh!:rolleyes: |
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Not for cheaters. The sky is always grey for cheaters. |
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Some bad ones do. Good ones don't. |
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It's been my observation for those two years that the weather was damn nice, the games were all reasonably competitive, and the umpires appeared, to me at least, to be doing what they should be doing, i.e., working their own spring training and tuning up for the real deal. I've noticed umpires experimenting with different stances and different mechanics, but I have not observed what I would consider any "mercy" calls to try to Kevork an out-of-hand game. But I promise I won't get as emotional about our differing viewpoints as ozzy6900 got. |
Coach of a 13-14 team winning big should not need to ask for a larger zone in a fall ball game for 2 reasons:
1. He can tell his players to be aggressive at the plate and swing at at anything close and if they connect, well sh*t happens. 2. The zone should already be BIG, for both teams equally. |
And the NCAA says...
From the NCAA Umpire Evaluation Standards:
http://www1.ncaa.org/membership/cham...eval_standards "Consistency of Strike Zone Throughout the Game Maintains the same zone throughout the game and is the same for both teams from inning 1 to inning 9. Has a grasp of how the zone can be adjusted in lopsided game. Note: Umpires "miss" pitches occasionally, just because an umpire calls a pitch that bounces a strike once does not mean that he should continue to call that pitch a strike in the name of consistency." (Emphasis added) I guess you can decide for yourself what "adjusted" means. Walter |
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