Gray Area Strikes

[Rich]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

YMMV, but if I had ever called a strike at the top of the "new" zone at the varsity level, I would have been run out of town on a rail! I've never seen an umpire intentionally give a high strike in any of the games I worked.

Those days are over in my neck of the woods.

I call the high strike. Now, I'm just a little D3 umpire, but the 3 conferences I work in I just tell the coaches who chirp (and there isn't much chirping on high fastballs) "the NCAA wants it that way."

Once I started working to get it up there in college games, I took it right to the HS field. What I noticed was that nobody said anything as long as it was there the whole game. Where I see more kvetching is when an umpire is very, very tight.

Of course I live in Wisconsin, and the HS ball here pales to anything I used to see in the south, but even there I heard more complaining from coaches when partners were small on the zone.

(And I'm a former college umpire now as I decided that 10 hours away for 2 9-inning games for $185 with no travel money on 2-4 hour drives on Saturdays and Sundays wasn't worth putting up with the Earl Weaver wannabes I'd have to eject at least once every other week.)