Bailed out by a Class Manager

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Robert E. Harrison

I think all would agree that baseball training indicates the importance of calls and touching a base is way down the list compared to fair/foul, catch/no catch. As a team, umpires are responsible to get the call right, not tell the coach, "He was watching the runner touch 1st" or "My partner is no help".

Want me to tell you what happened with a pro manager? I had the touch of first. I had no help for my partner. Yet he came to me and overturned the call from foul to a home run. The DC then appealed first, thinking that I provided the info to overturn. Shitstorm ensues.

[DG]

Originally Posted by REFANDUMP

This is one of those situations that I hate to bring up as I have to admit that I screwed up !!! I do however feel that I can learn from this, and am looking for suggestions on how to deal with this situation.

2 person crew, I have the dish. We have sun coming in from over the left field fence. Fly ball hit to the right of the left fielder (towards the LF foul line) who dives for a catch. It appears to me that the ball bounces, but I can honestly say I didn't get a good look at it as I was looking towards the sun. I look at my partner and he isn't giving me anything as he's watching the batter-runner touch first and go towards second. Since I haven't called an out, the batter continues on to second base where he ends up after the ball comes back to the infield.

Time is called and the visiting team coach comes out to talk to me (to his credit, very calmly and professionally) and asks what I had on that play. I told him that it appeared to me that the ball skipped but agreed to check with my partner as the sun was a factor and I wasn't 100% sure. My partner was unable to help and I was prepared to go with my call when the other coach comes in to tell me that the ball was caught. This was a great game and he didn't want to win this way. I called the out, no one complained and I promised the coach (only half jokingly) that I'd send him flowers !!!

I learned two things from this play.
1) Get your sometimes lazy arse out further than a couple of steps behind the plate on flyballs.
2) This is a situation we don't think about and should make sure we pregame with our partners.

How do you deal with potential sunfields, and would you have handled this play the same way that I did ??

I will offer the suggestion you asked for instead of micro-analyze who should do what on the play.

Your lesson learned #1 is spot on, get up the line, shield your eyes with your hands from the sun and make the call. If I were the BU in this situation I probably would not be much help, although I will give you what I have and it only takes a second to watch BR touch 1b.

As for #2, you can't pregame every possibility, unless you know beforehand at this field that the sun is not a problem until 7th inning on the LF line.

[dougprob]

The post seems to indicate that the BU was in A position at the start of the at bat. I really don't know how much help he would be able to provide even if he was staring the play down. The fielder would have blocked his view and it appears to me that the BU would have had a bit of a sun issue also.

Get out from behind the plate. Make the best call you can make. Do your job, don't rely on some one with their own responsibilities and possibly an even worse view than you had.


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