What if player tells you your call was wrong?

[brandda]

First off, on the flinching, don't sweat this. As Freix said, this is somehting we all go through starting out. Heck, I still have a couple of games per year where I find myself flinching especially at the minors level where the catchers really can't protect you the way they can when they are older. When that happens, I have some extra padding for my arms and stomach that I put on and wear until I stop flinching at which point I can take it off again.

A couple of things to be careful of. I have seen some umpires whose answer to flinching is to lock themselves down and force no movement at all during the pitch. While this can stop the flinching, it can also sometimes lead to tunnel vision so be careful. Secondly, whatever you do, don't do what you describe below. About the only way your head can get hurt is if you turn it or duck it. One of my very first games, I did this and took a fastball in the ear. It cured me of that particular problem very quickly. Finally, I have seen some umpires wear full helmets to deal with this and would not recommend it. Hearing is very important to good umpiring and it is pretty hard to hear with one of those things on.

Ok, next, if you call it a ball, it can be appealed to the field umpire who can then tell you that he saw a strike. The reverse is not true. If you call it a strike, it cannot be changed back to a ball. This is something to keep in mind on those close swinging strikes as well. If you are in doubt, call it a ball and then let them appeal.

I will defer to my esteemed colleagues on this board as to the changing of a call, but I would tell you to be very, very, very careful in how you handle this. As I said previously, LL has a very specific set of appealable calls and if you allow appeals in other places, specifically as regards judgement calls, you can really be setting yourself up for trouble.