Out of the Dark?
 

I caution the reader to question some of the lightning facts presented in that thread.
Even some of the attempted corrections included erroneous statements.
I won't go into detail because the thread has been locked.

I wish to humorously point out that even the NOAA experts were "making things up" too. For example, "The injury number is likely far lower than it should be because many people do not seek help or doctors do not record it as a lightning injury."
http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/index.htm
Isn't blaming the people injured by lightning or those responsible for their treatment an excuse for NOAA's whining that they don't hear about it often enough to significantly rely on their statistics?

Lightning is not something to mess around with, but as I have said before, the rulebook states that the plate umpire makes the final call regarding suspending the game. He can take input from the base partner, but that is all the base guy can do. Practicing any other method would be disrespectful to the rules of this great game.

I think the real danger comes from umpires not fully supporting their partner's call to suspend a game. I had a situation at CDP where I called in baseball operations to fix a hole in centre field. My one partner was up in arms about it because it meant a 4 or 5 minute delay in the game. Personally I think that kind of attitude is what can really lead to safety problems.

Yes human life is trivial compared to the game of baseball. Not to mention having to defend yourself in a civil suit.

By literal interpretation, yes PU has final say in suspending a game. BUT, not all interpretations are to be taken literally. What I mean is this...When BU sees lightning, he should go to his partner and say, "There's lighnting pretty close, you need to stop the game." Period. If you are going to be dead set (no pun intended) on making the PU make the final call, then you as BU should insist that he make it. He shoul dtrust what you tell him, since he can't see behind him. And in this case, if he won't, make it yourself. If for no other reason, for the liability involved. I expect my partner to help out on this. Plus, I'm not a weather expert, he may be.

Watch out for the black helicopters.

(Hey Steve....and you thought he was kidding!)

As I stated earlier, all umpires in our association are instructed to use the same process when dealing with lightning. (Which is the same as that which Baseball Ontario has given its umpires) So far, we have not had an issue of umpires disagreeing on how to handle a live situation.

However, hypothetically, if I were the BU and the PU refused to follow the procedure, I would put safety over your opinion of disrespect and ask the coaches to remove their teams from the field.

As would I, and every other official in both associations I belong to that has a lick of common sense. If the coaches refused to put the players in the dugouts, or find other shelter for them if they're playing on a field without a roof over the dugout, I'm leaving my 'partner' to fly solo should he wish to continue.



Tim.

You never knows where the MIBs is at.:)

SDS nailed it
 

SDS did nail my weak attempt at {canada} dry humor; as he has many times before.
Funny that CU brought about an interesting discusion on an important topic {YMMV}. Then despite several mistakes made throughout the thread, most people just quietly ignored the opportunity to trade barbs.
You may correct one now for the true horrizon distance. Really does matter when lightning is nearby. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon for details.
Enjoyed the discussion on lightning, but I caution you to pay more attention to the thunder. One thousand one, one thousand two, ....

The information contained there may or may not be correct, I don't know; but generally speaking, no one who seriously wishes to document facts should ever use Wikipedia.

At school, we will not accept Wikipedia as a reference on any subject. I don't know of any credible institution that does.

Where I go to design school, we are allowed to cite a Wikipedia source as long as we back it up with several other sources. A Wikipedia source is not allowed to stand alone with no other corroboration.

I used answers.com to help me with a Geography topic proposal on urban sustainability. Apparently I got the definitions of both "urban" and "sustainability" wrong, and this brought my mark down. Then when I used practically the same definition from an online journal article, my definitions were accepted. Frustrating and strange. Answers.com is a good reference. Wikipedia is not quite as good because it can be edited.

When you can copy and past Yahoo Answers and claim them as your own? Fitted shoe, wear it.

So is Salma Hayak.
My info came from the teenager next door.:)

Always check more than one source. The more the better. And don't make the mistake of using the one source that agrees with your point of view.