So whats your key to controlling that situation?

Use your game management skills. It's not as if the FYC is your best option (I don't know that it should ever be an option, at least to start with).

30 years ago in college ball the FYC was all the rage. Umpires used it judicially and appropriately and skippers and players knew what it meant.

It has lost favor among upper level umpires, assignors and evaluators over the past ten years, and is disappearing even faster than the neighborhood play.

Many skippers and players don't "get it" and it just confirms in their mind that the umpire is incompetent when he calls a cockshot a ball, or down and out a strike.

For the most part, it has lost not only its favor but also its usefulness. Although it is apparent from this thread that it still has some fans, I haven't seen it used in a college game for at least the past five years.

For what its worth....
 

I have not ever used an FYC in a college, Legion or even a HS varsity game. I have only used it twice that I remember in stupid, summer ball tournament games (13/14/15 yo's) when the coaches and many of the players don't have an effin clue. It is usually, very hot, very late and the game is over in everything but the number of innings to play. I DO NOT advocate using it in games that matter such as the higher levels mentioned in my first sentence above.

Quite frankly, you shouldn't have to in the higher level games. I make the calls as I see them and keep the game moving. When some player or manager or ASSistant coach doesn't want to keep the game moving then I deal with it as necessary. I averaged less than 2 hours in my HS varsity plate games last season and am usually between 2 hours to 2:15 for college games. I know how to manage the game from my end. Sometimes the coaches and players in their zeal to win forget about those little details. Pitching mistakes, pitching changes and errors by the defense are what usually messes up my game management and timing. You absolutely cannot fix those things as an umpire. HS varsity I usually get to the 5th in about 45 minutes then the wheels sometimes fall off. In College it is the 7th that bites me in the ace.
My two cents. Your mileage may vary.

If you have to 'send a message' then send it. When the game gets to the point where you have to do that, then I suspect the teams just don't get it anyway.

As to expanding my zone for an out of hand game, that would be a last resort type of thing. It is very hard for me to deviate from my zone, I guess I don't have that much flexibility in it. Once it's dialed in for a game, it's very difficult for me to change mid-stream.

Look, if I have to resort to miscalling ball/strike, safe/out to manage a situation in a game, I'm not doing my job. A FYC is just that. And those are followed by the FYP, and someone (us) gets hurt.

Why even start down that road?

Pete,

Good question.

I don't believe I have ever made a FYC in a game.

To me, it's kind of an "advanced" umpiring technique - and I'm still kind of new to this stuff.

I can think of one player who was sure I had, but I hadn't.

I can think of another player who was sure I would, but I didn't.

I'm not opposed to it if the circumstances call for it - and the practitioner knows what he's doing.

JM

I think that I've only used it once. A new catcher was in the game and showed his displeasure at 2 close pitches I balled. I told him to knock it off, but he did it again. Next pitch was right down broadway and I balled it. It worked.

The only reason I felt comfortable doing it was that Jim Leyland was on the coaching staff (his son was on the team). The manager started to complain, but Leyland cut him off. It was obvious that he was explaining what had just happend.

The FYC is always a loaded question. There seems to be 2 scenarios.
The first scenario is like, have you ever told a little white lie. I believe that he who is without guilt can cast the first stone. Anyone anywhere, who has not expanded his or her strike zone whether it was during the game or at the beginning of a game that they knew was going to be a blowout, or called a tie at a base the opposite of what they normally call or anything else that differs from what they normally call is guilty, end of story. If you have never, ever done anything intentionally, great. Throw that stone. If you have, I guess we should exterminate you. I will not penalize those who "thought the thought" but did not carry through with it, although I do wonder why you thought the thought.
The second scenario is the FYC to make a point. Batter gripes on 2 pitches, catcher sets up outside and makes pitch look right down middle, strike 3. I do not see why you could be guilty in scenario 1 and that is OK, but think scenario 2 is wrong. Wrong is wrong in both, or OK is OK in both, just so long as it is used judiciously and not the norm, and I will not try to even guess how every one interprets judiciously other than to say it would come under good game management skill. A lot of us would not be very good at it and would get in trouble. For others, it would work like a charm.

A central problem with the FYC for many umpires is that it is too easily misinterpreted:

1. The umpire is lousy with balls & strikes anyway, and it's written off as just another mistake. Participants interpret a FYC as a bad call by a lousy umpire.
2. The umpire uses the FYC as a crutch instead of employing good game management techniques. Participants interpret a FYC as a bad call by a lousy umpire with a temper.

To send the right message and use a FYC effectively, then, you must be a really good ball/strike umpire who doesn't miss pitches. And, you must be known to be such. A missed call then demands explanation, and then the explanation might be "FYC."

Also, you must be great at game management, and have a player go over the line anyway. Once everyone on the field sees such a player and is thinking "what an azz," a FYC from the umpire can actually be welcome.

For my part, I'm not there yet. So I don't use the FYC at any level.

The FYC probably retains some small place in amateur baseball, but the place is really small. Certainly I would not use it in HS ball (though I've been accused of it): for one thing, I'd be worried about being misinterpreted along the lines of the above. But also, I choose not to get into pissing contests with teenage boys.

How many of us have Jim Leyland at our game to explain to a clueless coach about complaining on pitches or showing the umpire up. Leyland probably explained the umpire only has 2 choices, use the hammer (ejection) or the FYC which keeps the player in the game if he "gets it" and doesn't go nuts on strike 3 and the manager cannot get there quick enough to "save" him.

Umpires do not have the technical foul or yellow card as a way of warning a player who has gone right up to the line just short of ejection.

Now, without Jim Leyland at a future game, watch this clueless coach stick it up some umps hind-end by asking, is that a real strike or a FYC (message) strike? And then, he will probably proceed anyway, to call up the assignor and blackball you from future games which so many assignors (not all) allow, so they get to keep the school or league and their money rolling in, rather than backing their umpires or telling the umpires to just eject and do not FYC and he will back you 100% and yell at the clueless coach.

And don't open that can of worms like this FYC about coaches being there for the kids, game, sportsmanship, mom and apple pie, and fair play.

I've never considered lying to be an effective or desirable game management tool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pFQMMY234U

If you are uncomfortabel using it that's fine but do not say that any official who uses this technique is dis-honoring the game.

Pete Booth[/QUOTE]

How about this? I am very uncomfortable with being unethical.

And I don't buy into the notion that just because it's been done in the past, somehow it justifies me doing it in the future.

In a previous example, a catcher is whining about the strikezone. The umpire warns him about continuing. That doesn't work. The umpire calls a strike down the middle a ball, to send a message.

Now you've cheated the pitcher out of a strike, and given an advantage to the offense. Plus, nearly all the observers now think you're incompetent. (including the batter, who doesn't know WTF you're doing now). All because you can't handle your business.

Instead, you call time, dust off the plate, go mask to mask with the catcher, and have a quiet come-to-Jesus conversation with him.

How hard is it to do things the right way?

I would agree with your third scenario where the occasional FYC is a "part" of good game management. Remember, questioning ball and strikes is against the rules and could be considered bad sportsmanship subjecting the questioner to immediate ejection.

If you take the position of being morally opposed to the FYC, and I clearly don't believe it quite reaches that moral high ground (it is a game after all), then you must be tossing folks at the first sign of displeasure (and risk being labeled a red-***) or accepting the critique like a doormat (and being labeled a doormat). You're going to open yourself up to criticism either way, it goes with the territory.

The FYC simply offers an additional tool-in-the-tool box, which only the baseball knowledge impaired players and coaches do not understand. It's a bridge between allowing the behavior to continue and ejecting at the first sign of such behavior. I don't particularly care for either extreme, but that's just me.

If imposing an occasional "one-pitch penalty for bad behavior" is wrong, I don't want to be right.
If being right means being without you (FYC call), I'd rather be wrong than right.
(My apologies to Luther Ingram, Homer Banks, Carl Hampton, Raymond Jackson and Stax Records or any of its affiliates)

:eek:

Please stop making it a morality play, it's a judgment call regarding how you personally handle your game management situations, that's all. No right or wrong answer in my opinion.

I guess like any game management tool, if you're using it too much, then the problem may not be with them, it's you. Like T's in basketball or ejections, maybe one or two a season. They shouldn't be happening game after game.

When they do happen, I still tend to think of it as a "trying to keep you in the game, despite your borderline bad sportsmanship" call but FYC is easier to say/understand then TtKYitGDYBBS, see it just doesn't work. FYC while vivid, accurate and descriptive is a slightly pejorative term.

:)

I don't see where the problem of understanding the call is, coaches that I've talked with after using the tool and explaining that, in effect that's the kids warning, have never had a problem with it, in fact most say either thanks or they knew it was coming. I never had a problem with it when I coached HS kids.

It's really not a debate out there, it's a baseball game. Players play, coaches coach, umpires umpire.

That's one way to be seen as a moral person; redfine morality.

It brings to mind a great saying from the 90's. "That depends on what the meaning of "is" is."

Is telling everyone a strike pitch is a ball, when in fact you know it to be a strike, telling the truth? If you believe it is, read no further. You wont understand, anyway.

I would, obviously, disagree with about everything in your post. I have never had to resort to a FYC. It has not caused any problems. Ejections? About 3 a year out of 90 or so games. I am capable of communicating my displeasure and my expectations without lying and without tossing everyone who pisses me off and without becoming a doormat. I'm sorry if you haven't developed that ability.

Your "if so, I don't want to be right" logic sounds romantic, but my credibility and reputation are more important to me. If lying works for you and comes easy to you, by all means, use it. I believe in more direct and easily understood communtication.