Following the Rules

[harmbu]

Once again I will apologize to all who I offended by my "reaction" to the first few posts. Had I thought about it first, I would not have responded the way did.

As has been pointed out, I should have been more clear on what happened. Here is my attempt to do that:

--The pitch was a fastball and the batter just stood there.

--I did not come out of the dugout with the rulebook in my hand. I had it in my pocket and asked if I could show him before taking it out. Had he said "no", I would have never taken it out.

--My issue was not with the call as much as with the way it was handled after the fact. This has been addressed by some of the replies. I am glad to hear that I am not alone in feeling that he shouldn't have brought the interpreter into the discussion.

[shickenbottom]

Originally Posted by harmbu

Once again I will apologize to all who I offended by my "reaction" to the first few posts. Had I thought about it first, I would not have responded the way did.

As has been pointed out, I should have been more clear on what happened. Here is my attempt to do that:

--The pitch was a fastball and the batter just stood there.

--I did not come out of the dugout with the rulebook in my hand. I had it in my pocket and asked if I could show him before taking it out. Had he said "no", I would have never taken it out.

--My issue was not with the call as much as with the way it was handled after the fact. This has been addressed by some of the replies. I am glad to hear that I am not alone in feeling that he shouldn't have brought the interpreter into the discussion.

I will preface by saying the umpires made their call based on the information they were supplied. This information is based on the "Intent" of the rule, not necessarily the "Letter" of the rule.

Your response to question based upon the letter of the rule may be correct, however, the umpires bungled their response due to lack of understanding for the intent of the rule.

A more appropriate response would have been, "Coach, it was a (describe whate ever type of pitch it was), that froze the batter in their tracks. Barring an "intentional" act to get hit with a pitch, they are being awarded first base. End of story.

Now, based on this hypothetical response, would you question this any futher?