Parent/Umpire

[Eastshire]

If I'm in the stands of my son's game and I see a rule misapplied, I am going to let my son's coach know. Why not? Umpires can and do make mistakes. If the mistake is in rule interpretation, the umpire should be man enough to suck it up and correct it.

The umpires shouldn't be bigger than the game and the concept of don't you dare point out that an umpire made a rules mistake is making the umpire bigger than the game. By all means, don't disagree with a judgement call in public, but the rules are the rules.

[PeteBooth]

Eastshire]If I'm in the stands of my son's game and I see a rule misapplied, I am going to let my son's coach know.

Be careful with this one. Who's to say you are right.

Case and point.

I umpired a HS game with a fellow official and we both had kids playing in LL at the time. This was the Sr Division.

Also, at that time in FED F1 could not "check a runner" (rule has since been changed) unlike the OBR ruling.

LL plays by OBR

The "other teams" F1 "checked the runner" and you could hear this guy all over the park saying "that's a balk" . When he finally realized that this was LL not HS he is the one who ended up with "egg on his face"

Here's another twist

There is a double dip. One crew for game number 1 and another crew for game number 2.

Your crew has game number 2. As officials we are told not to say anything when it's NOT our game. You see that crew number 1 missapplied a ruling. What are you going to do?

Answer: You should do NOTHING as it is NOT your game so IMO the same should hold true when you are an umpire spectator.


Side Note: When the fans know you are an umpire, it will get to the point where you cannot enjoy the game because they will constantly ask you questions and ultimately ask you to critique the official

To each his/her own but as I mentioned before when my kids played I simply came to watch and enjoy as I couldn't care less whether their team won or lost as long as they had fun.

[Eastshire]

If I'm there in the suit, that's a whole other issue. As to whether or not I'm right on the rule, let's just say I haven't lost any bets recently.