Foot Outside The Box
 

I was hoping someone could give tell me if I right or wrong about this......

10 year old little lague game and I was coaching 3rd. Batter had 2 strikes.
The pitch was behind the batter, but the ump called strike-three because because the batter had a foot outside of the box.

I argued that there is no penalty for having a foot outisde the box unless the bat touches the ball. The ump tells me that anytime the batter's foot is outside the box, the pitch is a strike.

You were right. The ump had it very wrong.

Where do they get umpires like this? Oh, yeah....the bleachers.

Foot outside the box
 

[SIZE="3"]:eek: OMG!!! Where DO these guys come up with these S**T. It is umpires like this, that ruin it for so many good ones. Please, someone straighten this (ump) guy out. Better yet, trade the ump for a horse and shoot the horse!
Just teasing bout shooting the horse.
Obviously, someone told this guy that was a "rule" from somewhere. Shame on this ump for never having read ANY baseball rule book. Takes too much time.:rolleyes:

Starman,

How did the protest turn out??

I hope you did protest.

If you didn't protest you should have, at least he would have learned something new.

We did not protest. I am not the head coach, so I told the ump my opinion and let it be. We ended up loosing 6-5.

I kind of wish I did protest, just to make the point to the ump. The ump was about 19 years old. We had him for 4 games in 5 days. He did a good job with balls and strikes and on the bases.

Here is another story about the same ump......

Two days ago, the other team was complaining because our pitcher was going to his mouth on the mound. So the same ump warns our pitcher and we explain to him that he has to go off the mound if he is going to lick his fingers. Then, in between innings, I over hear the ump and the other team's coach still talking about it. I ignore it, until I hear the ump say to the other head coach "I don't know what the penalty should be for that, a walk?". I walked over and told him them that the penalty is a ball, he seemed to beleive me. The issue never came up again.

There should be no penalty for a 10 year old going to his mouth because 1) the rule was meant for adults and 2) a 10 year old is not likely to be able to throw a spitter. Just tell him to stop doing that.

Go ahead on an load up there, Gaylord...let's see you make the ball dance!:rolleyes:

Not sure where they got this guy, but his twin seems to be working in my area: A coach, see's me at work, "hey blue, you umpire, here's what happened." One of my associations umpires, so I'm ready to straighten coach out and splain his weaknesses in the rules arena. This ump is a rookie, I've seen him work several time's, just, I guess never saw him in this particular situation.

This is adult league SP one man. Local industrial league with some very good teams and basically a very competitive well spirited group.

Not that it matters; but final regular season game, H team is 13-0 and stacked, V team is 12-1, you know who gave em their only loss and that was a beat-n....

Bottom of 7 (the last inning) home team down 1, bases juiced 1 out.
GB to F6, 6-4-3 DP 3 outs. V begins celebrating. O coach reaches a bit and say's, hey blue the run counts (R3), umpire says, "yep, R3 clearly scored before the third out"!!!! Dooh!!

I choke a bit, then ask, so, when you protested what was his response?

He's say's "well I wasn't sure, since it was a DP, it didn't seem right but we didn't argue.."

I say's "well, did he offer you a ring or at least to buy breakfast after he scr---- ya that way?"

The first extra inning V doesn't score, bottom, you guessed it, H team pushes across the game winner for the Dubya..

Again we scorn these umpires for not knowing the basics, but I'm telling ya, coaches, it's worth your time to know this stuff, sometimes just the fact you question and threaten or promise to protest, just might get the guy to thinking maybe snap something in the memory banks back into place...amazing...

Nothing you could have possibly said would have amazed me following this sentence.

They call them volunteers I think in LL. Most likely he did play ball through HS, so he must know the rules.:rolleyes:

yep, continue to beat up on 19 year old umpires who are umpiring either for free or next to nothing...if you're lucky...maybe he'll quit by the end of the season and you'll have to go through the same crap next year when another aspiring rookie gives it a whirl

Not sure what this is all about. This 19 year old is umpiring for free or next to nothing? Well, you certainly get what you pay for. I don't feel sorry for the leagues that hire these guys trying to save a buck, and I don't feel sorry for people who attempt to officiate without bothering to at least learn a few basic rules and who make up crap as they go along. If he wasn't sure what the rule was, he should have stopped and consulted the rules, or asked one of the probably many people there what the proper ruling was.

Starman wasn't beating up on the guy. He said that the kid did pretty good on balls and strikes. But he does need to read at least some of the rules before going out on the field and ruining peoples' day.

Maybe it's the difference between the pace of baseball as opposed to basketball, but I can't imagine stopping a game long enough to either open up a rules book or consult with someone off the field (even if I know he's a respected official).

Once the game starts, you go with what you got on the field as far as rules knowledge. I can't imagine it's just basketball, but I know a lot of officials who kick rules early in their careers. He11, I ,know a lot of officials who kick the occasional rule late in their careers.

Isn't what youth ball is for (from an officiating perspective)?


I'd agree he obviously needs to brush up on the rules, but does he need to be perfect before ever stepping behind the plate?

Well, I've never stopped to look up a rule, nor do I advocate carrying the rules on the field. The point I was making is that if you don't know the rule, don't make up a rule. He should have ignored the foot out of the box instead of making up a rule. It wouldn't have taken long to ask anyone who knows anything about baseball if he was right or not.

I've worked basketball in my past too. I knew the rules pretty darn well before starting out. I knew, to make a comparable example, that if you step on the out of bounds line with the ball, that you are out of bounds and the other team gets the ball. That's about how basic the batters box rule is in baseball. Not a really tough call, and pretty much common knowledge.

Sure, officials kick rule calls at all levels of experience on occassion. Judgment calls too. But they normally don't kick such basic rules like this one. It's usually a knotty problem like the kind we argue about here, a different interpretation of a rule, for example.

No. Before I was allowed on the baseball field in my association, I had to attend classes and clinics and learn the damn rules. It sounds like this guy just bought some gear and a uniform (or it was given to him) and called himself an umpire.

I never said anything about anybody being perfect, either before or after stepping behind the plate. Last perfect person I ever heard of ended up getting hung by the Romans. No, perfection is not a requirement, and you know it's not. But a basic working knowledge of the rules is a requirement to officiate any sport.

I guess from my perspective, the specifics of the rule he got wrong seems a bit more complex than the OOB line in basketball. More like whether the substitute has to shoot the free throws for an injured player (as opposed to anyone on the court). It's a relatively basic rule that everyone should know, but newer officials kick it occasionally.

Maybe, but I've seen officials kick basic rules, learn from it, and move on to become pretty damned good officials.


I'm lumping LL ball into, essentially, YMCA basketball; so the idea of an ill-prepared official doesn't seem all that unlikely.


Fair enough. This particular rule seems, from your perspective, to be a basic; I can accept that.

That too would constitute making up a rule, namely that a foot out of the box is insignificant. :eek:

Not at all. A foot out of the box is insignificant...if the batter does not contact the ball with the bat! He would be making the proper "no call."

Unless you were just being funny,:confused:

Steve, perhaps, rather than him having made up the rule , he was going by something he had heard for years there locally. A neighborhood rule myth,one might call it. Not excusing the dumb ruling, just offering an alternative explaination for the ignorance.

You and I know it's insignificant, since we know the rule. If you don't know the rule, then anything you do amounts to making up a rule. You're just lucky if you happen to guess right.

My point was the advice you gave is not much help. When something happens on the field, you have to make some kind of ruling. If you don't know the rule, then telling you not to make up rules provides no direction.

Of course, if your real advice is to learn the rules so as not to end up in this position, that's hard to argue with.

Yes. This was the point of the whole thing. The guy should not be umpiring if he doesn't know at least a basic rule like that one, and he should learn the playiing rules before getting out there.

Which is harder?
 

Following Snaqwells initial premise about no one being perfect when they officiate their first game and speaking of the basic rules and the decision-making between a baseball umpire or a basketball referee; which is harder to learn to officiate?

I guess this is my problem here, trying to figure out which rules are basic and which are justifiably more complicated.
I played a lot of baseball as a kid, but never once saw an umpire ding a batter for having the foot out of the box. Didn't see it until I was in my late 20's playing slow pitch. It's just hard for me to consider a rule basic when I've only seen it broken and enforced once in my lifetime.
Let me ask this, how often do y'all see this happen in actual games at the various levels?

Basic: Rules that I know.

Advanced: Rules that I don't know.

Saw this...
 

exactly once in twelve years.

It depends: as PU I've never seen it (and expect never to do so). As BU I've seen it once in a HS game: LH batter was halfway to pitcher when he bunted a slow curve.

I guess this speaks to my point, thanks.
I was called for it in a slow pitch game once; standard swing but my lead foot went a little too close to third base (my plant foot stayed in the box). One of my first slow pitch games ever, and I was still in effect learning to hit.