Baseball/softball crossover mechanics
 

For those of you that do both baseball and softball, do you try to keep your signals as common as possible? Like on plate, do you stick with the hammer for strikes and if you do, do you keep it as high as you do for softball or do you point instead? For outs, do you just casually hold the hammer to your side chest high or do you bring it up high like in softball? IMO, the games are about 80% common and I think there are elements in each game that can make us better umps in the other game.

In my area, we have three kinds of umps, the softball guys who feel baseball guys are all old, fat, and lazy...the baseball guys who feel that softball guys are pansies...and then the third group consists of the peacemakers who do both games and seem to be the umps who have a much better grasp on the game/rules. I feel that doing plate in baseball makes me a better softball plate guy and doing bases in softball helps me improve my base work in baseball.

Just venturing a guess here - would you happen to be in the third group?

I am old, fat, lazy, and ugly too, :D. But I still umpire both baseball and fastpitch softball, but my preference is baseball.

MTD, Sr.

I thought getting old, fat and slow is what makes you become a softball umpire.

A lot of the guys that I know that do softball do it strictly for the money...they get the same money as baseball and the games rarely exceed an hour.

Umpiring for the money ... I'd never really thought of that.

You know what I mean

:D If you study the umpire books and watch higher level games and the PROs, you'll see that almost all of the umpire mechanics are the same.

I use both softball and baseball mechanics for both games. I use what is comfortable for me and the level of play.

I would say that upper level softball umpire mechanics are quite a bit different than upper level baseball. Except for maybe the "safe" signal. Admittedly, I don't watch much softball.

I would say the main difference is the BU working outside the diamond in softball. I don't think even that is hard to learn; you just have to figure out where to be so you'll have the best angle. I'm sure that would take some time for a baseball umpire to get used to, just like I'm not quite as comfortable working the bases on the big diamond. If you're already a good umpire in one of the sports, you could move to the other with little difficulty.

Softball/baseball thoughts
 

I do both.

As far as mechanics, you basically have to do what your conference or association expects and hope that you do not mix in the wrong mechanics when you're being evaluated. If you are working lower levels, it probably doesn't make a difference.

I only do softball for travel and high school these days, but I occasionally work some LL hardball games to work on my softball mechanics.

To me, the mental demands are very different. The interval in between pitches is more demanding on an umpire in softball. As soon as the ball returns to the circle you have to be ready to enforce the look back rule. You also have to be aware of illegal pitches and runners leaving early on every pitch. There are a lot of things that someone can do "wrong" in between pitches in softball, while In baseball it's basically watching for the balk.

The other difference is the greater difficulty in moving around on the smaller field, where the players may be in your way. The softball diamond is the same size as the LL baseball diamond, but at the HS level of play, the girls get around it very quickly. It is sometimes difficult to get inside the diamond when you have to give the runner and/or fielder the right of way and have a small area to work within.

I did transition from hardball to softball in my late 50s and for anyone considering doing it, it will require some work.

I thought those were qualification for becoming a better baseball umpire.:)