I agree! How does an umpire sell a whacker, call a catch on a badly troubled ball or even give a called strike three without being noticed? What we do is noticed and anyone who still believes the we can do our jobs like scared rabbits hiding in the high grass really needs to get with the times.

What I will say is that I would rather have a good game without heavy confrontations. A well played game with no serious arguments is a great game!

A well played game with no arguments is a great game. I just finished a state tournament for 16-18 year olds and in 8 games I worked there was only one mild argument regarding a called IFF that F3 somehow lost and F4 made a diving try at it 15 feet behind F3. The question was regarding ordinary effort and it should have been for F3. Everyone was well behaved and it was a great tournament.

A conversation between myself and a well-known sports radio personality, re: MLB:

SRP: "No one pays to see the umpires."

Myself: "But people cough up the ticket price with an expectation of seeing a well-officiated game."

QED.

This notion of "umpires shouldn't be noticed" is so shopworn.

We go unnoticed until actions by players force us to insert ourselves into the game.

I once had a batter-out-of-box call that caused great consternation among offensive coaches and fans alike. It was a "1000%-er." If I chose to go unnoticed, then I don't make the call. But then I am committing a huge ethical and vocational mistake by not doing so.

The batter forced me to make this call. I didn't bang him out for fear of being "noticed."

Bring it on.

Ace

To a large extent, I think that's true. But, like all bromides, it isn't absolute.

Too many umpires call attention to themselves (think of the OOO's on this and other boards, as one example).

"Poor" umpires miss more calls (especially gross misses), and, thus, call attention to themsleves.

Too many umpires fail to address (some) problems early, without being noticed. Then, the problem blows up later, and the umpire is noticed.

Good umpires do none of the above, and are "less noticed" (or noticed less frequently) than bad umpires.

All that said, sometimes the play / actions dictate that the umpire be noticed.

Is this obstruction on the batter?
 

Okay - I apologize for the misuse of terms - the umpire did actually say it was interference on the batter, not obstruction.

I am 30 years old, and playing in a men's league - so I'm only doing this for fun. But in my 20some odd years of playing ball, I have never seen this called in my life - and I have seen numerous plays where a catcher tries to throw a runner out at third with a batter standing in the right handed box.

For the record, I totally disagreed with the call, and can't see turning the situation into a 'judgement' call as the umpire did. The biggest problem I have though is that at the time this happened, the umpire told me the batter 'made no attempt' to get out of the way. I understood that as him saying the batter had to move for the catcher. The next morning, the umpire changed his tune stating the batter was okay, except for he raised up out of his stance a few inches - which constituted the interference.

It makes no difference now - but I was curious to see what other umpires would say about it.

Thanks for your replies, and feel free to add any other feelings you have. I haven't seen anything yet that has made me change my mind that this was a terrible call.

It very well might have been, depending on how many inches is "few" and the specific actions of the catcher.