Sending a "message"

[TheSlav]

Originally Posted by mbyron

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.

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)



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.