Nasty weather on the horizon...
 

I've been reading Sports Officiating: A Legal Guide 2nd Edition by Alan S. Goldberger. Some of the topics contained are very self explanatory and obvious but most people never quite think of them as liabilities. I figured in such a litigious society (of course I'm referring to the US) it might not be a bad read to reduce exposure.

Anyways, I just got done reading around weather (during baseball games) and the use of caution to continue after lightning. At times, I've considered investing in a hand-held (pager-style) lightning detector. The book doesn't mention the use of these devices to my surprise. Do any of you carry such device when the weather might turn for the worse? I know that some of the coaches around here have them but seem to never have been activated when the conditions warrant. I've never understood why they have them if they are not used. Just curious if anyone routinely carries a detector and if they seem to work well. TIA

-Josh

I occasionally work at a park where...
 

they have the one mounted on a pole. It flashes a bright strobe, a shrill siren wails for about 30 seconds and the light continues to flash until the lightning risk is gone from the area. Then we wait 30 minutes after the light quits flashing. Never seen lightning there. Played in rain there when it did not go off. Stopped play two times in the last five years when I was there. I am sure there were other occasions it went off. The park director and league administrators love it. I guess it is fine if that is a real risk. I have no personal experience with lightning strikes to anyone I have ever known or even heard of. I guess I am just lucky.

Your mileage may vary.

What level is this? HS? Pretty fancy, sounds like a great system to me!

-Josh

It is actually a City-County Park
 

That has a five field cloverleaf of fields in one location dedicated to baseball (t-ball through High School/Legion level) and another four field cloverleaf for softball plus soccer, basketball, tennis, some sort of paddleball, handball, skateboarder/in-line skater, BMX races, lighted beach volleyball and a nice pool with slides, waterpark stuff also. Obviously, a LOT of money spent. Most of it donated I hear from the families that owned the land used to develop it. Coincidentally there are new neighborhoods going all around the park with pricey homes. I guess they did not give away all the land they owned for a park. (grin) Pretty smart actually.

We are planning a new park in my city. How are the five fields laid out? Do they share a press-box? I have seen many four field configurations, but never five. It would help us to get an extra field in the same area as the four we are planning.

until my job details include being able to detect lightning, i wont be purchasing a lightning detector.

it isnt all that hard to just follow any of the common guidelines anyways.

It is your job to detect lightning though. Because guess what, if someone gets struck by lightning under your watch, you could be held liable legally. Hence I asked the question if people carry the detectors

-Josh

Josh,
Perhaps the detectors are not activated [turned on] because of the difficulty in rescheduling games, ... or because of the score.

Actually I believe they have enough things to worry about and they just don't think about it.

-Josh

Have any of you ever had the situation where you are on bases, and you do not feel safe due to lightning, but your plate partner lets them play on?

You don't need your partners permission to stop a game if you feel there's a danger. I don't know of anyone I work with that would argue with me were I to make the decision to suspend the game due to a concern about lightening. And conversely, I wouldn't argue with any of them if they made the decision, even if I disagreed with it.



Tim.

Good call, Tim.
If we disagree then all the attorney fingers are pointing in our direction.

You already own lightning detectors: they are located on either side of your nose. :cool:

I won't be purchasing one...I'll err on the side of player safety...if I see lightning, we're coming off the field...period...it's pretty simple really. "one more pitch," "let's just finish the inning" is not worth my $95 game fee when I have to hire an attorney to defend my wanted to finish up "just one more hitter..." no gimmicky lightning detector for me.

I have often wondered how safe it is to stand in a small cyclone fence enclosure in a lightning storm, but I have never searched for the answer.