cell phone on the field?
 

Another poster in another thread stated:

"I have found just reaching for my cell phone is often enough to get the person to leave."

The only time I've ever carried my cell phone during a game was in a tournament when Saturday was a complete washout and we played 3-inning "games" on Sunday until the semi-finals. There were a lot of field changes, umpire changes, and tournament rule adjustments.

Other than that, I always leave my phone in my car.

I know several guys who think they can't be away from their phones for more than 10 minutes. It's an addiction, much like smoking. I worked with a guy about 10 years ago who would light up between innings. The one minute between innings grew to 3 or 4 until I would step in and call "balls in".

There are some folks who use their phones as a timer during timed games. I use a wind-up wrist watch that I keep in my pocket if I'm the keeper of the time. (And, no, I DON'T want this to rat-hole on the opinions of timers on fences! :mad: )

Anybody else carrying a semi-concealed cell phone?

I used to when I was working a game where my 12 and 14 year old sons were working on another field when I worked soccer. I used a smart watch as well, so I wouldn't need to pull out the phone to know at a glance if I needed to arrange emergency transportation arrangements for the kids, which I would do in between innings or at halftime, depending on the sport. With my wife often at work in the ICU or surgery, she was generally unable to check her phone during the day. So, I thought it was better to have at least one parent able to be reached by phone in an emergency. But, one day the phone fell out of my ballbag (I use 2) during a middle school softball game, and I realized then that I really can't have it with me. If I can bring it to the field in a gear bag, I will, but sometimes I have to leave it in the car. I have made an arrangement with a kind neighbor to be available by phone and I have deputized her to handle emergencies if I can't be reached. It isn't ideal, but honestly, we must have had some way to handle this back before we had cell phones, right?

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Bringing a phone to the field isn't a crime, but you shouldn't forget to turn the sound off. There is nothing bad to keep the phone with you in case of an emergency, but make sure you don't spoil the time of other people by using it. The problem is tht people who bring cell phones to the stadium forget to enjoy the gameplay.

I have kept one in my hip pocket with the ring off in case of an emergency. And kept a watch in my pocket for time.

Never had needed to take out the phone.

I discourage phones on you while umpiring. I buy the ugliest watch i can find, take the strap off and put in my bag. That way i am not tempted to use it anywhere else and then forget to put it back in my gear bag. I was training a new ump and i suggested he not carry his phone. First game he did, he took a hit in the ball bag and broke the screen on his $200 phone.

If I don't have my phone, how can I call my bookie to place bets on the games at my complex?

< joking>I just make sure I'm working with my bookie on games I want to bet on. Makes it so much simpler to set up a mid-game prop bet.< /joking>

Also, I never carry my phone onto the field. I did it once to use as a timer, and felt completely unprofessional pulling it out of my ball bag to answer a coach's question about how much time was left.

As a person who does bring my phone on the field, there are reasons I do.

First, in Rec League games, if there is an issue that arises, I need to be able to communicate with the powers that be, sometimes in a nearly immediate manner. Since we use parks all over the city, I may or may not be at a park with a site supervisor at my field. One park I work has two side by side fields. The supervisor is normally no more than 30 feet away. Another park has 5 fields and on these no backstops are near each other, so the supervisor may be 300 feet away, or may be 1500 feet away.

Second, I was a witness to a situation as a child that very well could have become deadly. I was watching my father's slow pitch team play when a team member from his team slide badly into third base and shattered his lower leg. This was pre mobile phones, so someone had to run to a business across the street from the park to call 911. While they were calling to get medical attention for this player, he started going into shock. He nearly died on the field as the result of a broken leg. At the same time all of this was happening, a thunderstorm also rolled into the area. A bolt of lightening hit in the area not far from the field while EMT's were stabilizing him for transport to the hospital.
What does that have to do with a cell phone? If an incident happened like that now, instead of someone having to run across a busy road to call 911, I have a way to call 911 in my back pocket. Rule #1 that I've always been told is in an emergency situation, don't expect someone else to take action. Take action yourself. I would easily be able to call 911 if the situation required it, and medical assistance would be able to arrive much faster.

Another reason to have my phone is for access to weather information. We often play double headers. On days we know the weather is questionable I can access the weather and see if we will be clear enough weather wise to get a legal game in. For most of our rec league games, a game ended by weather is official in the standings as long as 1/2 inning is completed (home team up in bottom half). If weather delays the game after that point, the game is official and will not be made up. The teams don't like this, so they aren't happy with starting a game that gets cancelled or delayed (the game clock still runs during a weather delay) a few minutes after first pitch. Since our league gives umpires some leeway in making the determination to start games, I am going to work with the players to assure things get handled in a manner best for the players. If this means looking at a weather radar before a game and deciding not to start the game (even if it costs me money), I would rather do that than have the team upset and find a different league to umpire in (short term loss for a long term gain).

Do I use my phone as a timer? Nope, I have a Fitbit on my wrist I use for timing games. I start my "workout" at the start of the game and have an easy rundown of the game time and my workout at the same time. Do I risk something happening to my phone? Possibly, but since I always keep the phone in my back pocket, I think the risk of it being damaged is low enough I'm not to worried about it. 95% of the time I remember to shut off the timer.

I see no reason to carry one in both situations - in (1), since everybody has a cell phone today, there's going to be someone either on the bench or in the stands who's going to be making that call; and in (2), I have many times asked a player/spectator to look at a radar display. MY phone is safely in my vehicle....generally turned off!

I'm in this camp as well.

The one time I did have my phone with me was that strange tournament situation where folks may have needed to reach me directly. Also, if I needed to make a call to another umpire, I have our local guys' numbers in my directory. I don't know all their numbers by heart. If I needed to reach an out of town umpire that was working the tournament, that would have been more challenging.