Assigning playoff umpires in Texas

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by lawump

It is as screwed up as it sounded in the newspaper story.

"I want a 9-game series, like the MLB World Series in the 1910's!!!"

The options are 3-game or 1. Generally, the preference is for 3, but some poorer or smaller town schools can't afford to take a team and stay somewhere for 2 nights, so they just want to play 1. Occasionally, you'll have a school with 1 superstar pitcher and nothing else - and they want to play 1... and occasionally they'll be up against a school that feels the same way.

[nopachunts]

Originally Posted by lawump

It is as screwed up as it sounded in the newspaper story.

"I want a 9-game series, like the MLB World Series in the 1910's!!!"

Under Texas UIL playoff guidelines, a winner has to be decided by midnight of the Saturday following the previous round. I think that they can't play more than two games in one day.

Last year, I was on a neutral crew that was going to do a Friday night game, with the second and "if" game on Saturday. Friday night was rained out, so it became a one-game Saturday series. If the Saturday game had been rained out, a team would have advanced based on a coin flip.

Texas spring weather plays havoc with three game series because of thunderstroms, lightening, etc. Last Saturday it was in the 80s, two Saturdays ago, the temperature was in the upper 40s with a 15 mph north wind.

[David B]

Originally Posted by nopachunts

I am in East Texas and speak only for how my chapter assigns crews for playoffs.

If a team thinks they may be eligible for playoffs, the HC sends a list of requested umpires to the chapter president listing umpires they want to call their playoff games/series. If an umpire is playoff qualified and available, the chapter tries to assign an umpire that was requested. If the requested umpire is not available, our assigner calls the coach, and gives him a list of the available umpires to choose from. In all cases, the chapter board approves all playoff assignments. My chapter has a good reputation and we send several crews each year for neutral games/series.


Each school's coach will call each other before the playoff series begins to discuss the number of games in a series, site(s), and home/visitor. If they can't agree, the coaches use a system to flip for the choice of series length, site, and home/visitor. Most of the time, each school will bring a two-man crew unless a choice/flip was made for a crew from a neutral chapter. There are times when the coaches will not want to use the chapter that normally calls their games and will agree for a neutral crew from a particular chapter.

If the coaches can’t agree on the umpires/chapter, a request is made to the UIL. Then the UIL calls for a crew to be sent to a series, the coaches involved in the series don't get a choice as to what umpires are sent. The chapter board assigns the umpires for the series.

I already know that I have the plate for a Regional Semi-Final tomorrow night using a split crew. The flips have already been done and the other school’s crew will have the plate for the second game and third if necessary.

I’m a long way from San Antonio but it sounds like the coaches agreed to use a neutral chapter and the school that was to call UIL went directly to the San Antonio chapter. JMO on this.

So they are still doing it the way we did back in 80's. It doesn't sound always good, but I have to admit "it worked very well". At the time I was a "up and coming" umpire, but we always had some great crews who worked our series when I was there. Our association had a "short list" of about 10-12 umpires who were chosen to work playoffs each year based on evaluations etc., and we regularly did neutral playoff games for other associations.

In my current state, there is no system "good ole boy network" and we regularly see umpires who call playoff games that are not qualified for that level of games.

And the best part of playoffs in TX was that you make part of the gate - it was not unusual to call a game and make upwards of $350 for one game plus mileage. And that was 20 years ago.

Thanks
David