Unsafe catcher

[ozzy6900]

Originally Posted by mbyron

With due respect, Oz, FED wants us to use preventive officiating to help reduce the risk of injury. No rule requires you to move the bat out of a scoring runner's path: do you consider that to be coaching as well?

I'm not responsible for any player's bad decision: if out of concern for safety I tell him to move and he moves somewhere worse, I have done nothing wrong. If you told me to quit smoking cigarettes and I started smoking crack instead, would you really feel bad or responsible?

Sorry, you are wrong. The FED does not want you telling players where to go, where to stand and what to do. That is coaching and this is not LL.

If you want, I can compile a list of all kinds of things that can be construed as "preventative umpiring" like:

• "Hey, don't throw that ball so hard on the pickoff"
• "Hey, don't slap that tag so hard"
• "Don't throw so hard to the batter, you might hurt him"

The list can go on and on.

Telling F2 where to stand is coaching, not preventative umpiring.