You could see it coming.

[tibear]

Originally Posted by GarthB

Worked on a recently renovated high school field yesterday. The one item that stood out over all others was the new RF foul pole. It was placed two feet inside the foul line.

Third inning, I was in A and the batter hit a shot down the line. I went out on it. The ball went out to the right of the foul pole and to the left of the foul line. I signaled homerun. As anticipated, 50% of the fans thought I was blind.

The home coach later informed me that he had complained to the district about the placement of the pole only to be told that they didn't have the funds to "replant" it.

That should guarantee some exciting moments for some time.

Could have avoided the whole arguement if it was mentioned at the plate conference.

We have some diamonds where the bases are simply nailed into the ground and first and third "float" around. In those situations, I always tell the coaches that we're playing the foul lines but also playing the bases wherever they are. This avoids the situation where the base is sitting a couple of inches in foul territory and the ball hits the base in foul territory. (They already know it is a fair ball, play on)

As the thread title states, "You could see it coming", if that is the case then tell the coaches at the start of the game to avoid this situation.

[GarthB]

Originally Posted by tibear

Could have avoided the whole arguement if it was mentioned at the plate conference.

We have some diamonds where the bases are simply nailed into the ground and first and third "float" around. In those situations, I always tell the coaches that we're playing the foul lines but also playing the bases wherever they are. This avoids the situation where the base is sitting a couple of inches in foul territory and the ball hits the base in foul territory. (They already know it is a fair ball, play on)

As the thread title states, "You could see it coming", if that is the case then tell the coaches at the start of the game to avoid this situation.

First, this was covered at the plate conference. We explained that the foul lines had priority over the foul pole. The title I chose referred only to "if it can happen, it will happen."

Unfortunately, the fans were not aware of the situation until the fly ball to RF. And, while, there are many calls the leave half the fans unhappy, in this particular case nearly all the fans thought the umpires made a mistake, but half were happy that they did.