FEDlandia Mechanics

[David B]

Originally Posted by jkumpire

To our Fedlandia friends:

I was at a local rules meeting where we got into a mechanics discussion. A couple of umpires remarked that they had recently been to another local association meeting in another city, and they learned "new" mecahnics.

They were told that the BU was never to go into C, and almost every call was to be handled by the PU at 3B. I assume that does not include straight steals of 3B or time plays, but who knows.

Is this someone who is buying into our good friend Carl Childress' Mechanics 2000 material, or are they strictly following the FED Umpires Manual mechaics, which I have not read in a while?

Maybe I'm just an old man, but I still believe BU should carry the BR to 3B, with R2 only BU has the tag and play at 3B on a fly ball, and throwbacks to a play at 3B after a throw to 1B are best handled by the BU, as well as a few other situations.

Any comments? Thank you for yours.

I'm sure there are many other threads on this topic, but basically its not all that new for BU to not venture into C territory.

We still teach our BU to stay in B. Why? Because I belive that its close to 5% of the plays are at 3rd and you still have a better angle to the play from B than C. (of course there has been scores of debate on that but that's for another thread)

As far as BU taking the runner to 3B, that's optional. I personally like as PU to take that call. Especially helpful when BU has to go out also.

Also with R2 on the tag, I like to take that runner as PU, but I call with other guys who like the BU to take it.

With the throw back to 3B that's easier with the BU taking both calls.

Been doing it and teaching it that way for 20 years, so I don't call it "new" mechanics. I call it proven mechanics - it works fine at least it has for me in my games.

Thansk
David