The Joys of JV
 

(Bit of a rant thread here....indulge me) I worked a JV game between two inner-city schools. It was single-man, but at this level I don't mind. Not much happens....oh wait: yes it does! I made calls tonight for rules that I've never had to invoke in all my time umpiring.

• "Triple play" on a fly ball with the based loaded: Fly ball is caught, R3 is picked off at 3B for leaving before the ball was touched, and R1 rounds 2B and heads for third while R2 is slowly tagging up at 2. Never called a runner out for passing a lead runner before.
• Batter-runner interference on a D3K. She picked up the ball and handed it to F2. Never called that before.
• Batter interference on a play at the plate on a passed ball. Never called that before.
• BR advances to 3B on an infield hit followed by a poor catch attempt by F3. Ball gets away and rolls to RF. BR gets to 3B and decides she must have been out. Coach grabs her on her way to the dugout and sends her back to 3B. BR is out for coach's assistance...never called that before.
• F9 scoops up a ball with her hat: 3 base award for detached equipment. Never called that before.
• This one's on me, as I missed it at the plate meeting: Coach tries to sub #1 for #1. Duplicate numbers on the lineup card...had to fix it and give the coach a warning. Neither player was actually wearing #1. Never had that before.

We played 3 complete innings in 1 hour 45 minutes (local JV time limit). Home team won 23-14. Yuck.

Thanks for the laugh. I can visualize the game completely based on your description.

I might use those in a clinic or class. :rolleyes:

Of course a few of those are at least partly familiar. Must be my longer experience. :p :)

They should all be out from running the bases in reverse order :rolleyes:

....and you didn't have a partner to share all this joy with.....

I guess that's what I get when I contact the HS office for a last-minute assignment. My JC games up north yesterday were cancelled due to snow.

Also, my protective equipment earned its keep last night. Everywhere that had gear got hit, and I do mean everywhere. Luckily, I didn't get hit anywhere that there wasn't gear. :D

Well hopefully my schedule gets better, first 3 scheduled games are all JV. The first one was miserable, neither pitcher was even close to being legal and there was nothing they could do to get legal for the game. They simply were not pitchers and had been thrown out there with no instruction.

Hopefully todays wont be as bad as Mondays.

Which is why some JV games need coaches more than they need umpires.

Which is why
 

most JV and other lower, developmental games, need a LOT more coaches who are either much better at coaching, or much better at herding cats.:o

One of the coaches was a good coach, if a little too serious, given the talent he's been handed. I thought he was going to have a heart attack right there in the coaching box. It should be noted that he wasn't some A-hole berating his players, either. He was just frustrated that he would tell his players to do ONE THING, and on the next pitch, they would do everything but the ONE THING. Any parent knows exactly what he was going through. :D

Had a JV game years ago where the visiting team didnt have a coach till almost the beginning of the season. Poor kid they brought in as I think was a relief pitcher, pitched a ball that went over the backstop(cleared it by a few feet). Didn't help it was 40* that day.

Seriously, why do they waste money on umpires for some of these games.

Todays game, 1 hour to complete the first inning and it was all the visiting team batting, home teams sent only 3 batters to the plate. Completed the 3rd inning with 10 minutes left to go in the time limit and home coach said he had enough and didn't want to continue.

Final score, 30-0, 3 innings in 1 hour 35 minutes and up until the 3rd inning the home team had only sent 6 batters to bat. They did manage to get a walk and a base hit in the 3rd and finished the game having sent 11 to the plate.

Wednesdays game I had to keep asking the catcher to back off of the batter or she was going to get whacked in the back of the head. Todays game I couldn't get either catcher to get within 5' of the batters. Mondays game I was just waiting for the one first basemen to take a ball in the teeth. Every time she caught the ball she held the tip of the glove right under her chin and more or less used it as an aiming device for her glove. I'm pretty certain by the end of the season she is likely to be missing some teeth.

Because the girls are out there trying their best to learn the game. They could otherwise be out in the streets getting into trouble.

I had one of those games last year with one of our inner-city teams. It was brutal from my perspective as the PU, but I just grinned and beared it. During the game, a fight broke out in the stands between two girls who were watching. It got ugly fast, and parents from both teams went over to break things up. Some of the players looked on in shock. It was pretty sad to see.

Wow....this makes me feel a lot better about the level of play around here. Even most of our middle school games are better than some of those described.
Heck, you'll have games where 1/2-3/4 of the kids on both sides have travel team batting helmets, bat bags, etc. Had one of those, and it was 1-0, great pitching, both teams infielders made spectacular plays, and we were out of there in an hour...for 7 full.

Had a JV last year where the coach had had food poisoning from the night before, and she only had 8 to start. The other team took it easy on them; they would score 5 in an inning, then ease up (lefties batting right, etc), or the coach would have base runners step off early to get an out, and so on. They got their 15 run lead in the 5th, got the other team out, and we went home. I always consider when a coach does that as an act of sportsmanship. :cool:

You may consider it an act of sportsmanship, but there are some (losing) coaches that consider it being "shown up". Their attitude is that they don't want the winning team to give them outs, they want their kids to fight through and earn the outs. I have seen heated discussions from one dugout to the other when these tactics are used.

I have seen both also, watched a coach go ballistic on daughters coach because he had a runner step off base. She actually forfeited and walked off the field and that was her exact argument, she wanted her players to earn the outs. Only problem was he had already had everyone batting opposite, was not taking extra bases, had never attempted to steal a base the entire game and they still couldn't get an out. The bleeding has to be stopped at some point one way or another.

Have also had a coach that refused to back off after they had already scored some 24 runs in a single inning. Stealing on every pitch, taking extra bases whenever possible and advancing on every error by the defense. I attempted to talk to him about backing it down a little, but he said he had a coach go crazy on him for having girls step off, so he wasn't going to let up anymore.

No one learns anything in those blowout games. The losing team is simply frustrated and nothing they do works and they just continue to compound their errors. The winning team gets lazy and takes chances they would never take against a good team.

Showing up the other team or rubbing it in, certainly should be avoided.

Good coaches, when they are, should be able to read the weak team coach, starting at the plate meeting. When the weak team coach says things like "let's just get through this" or "we need to count this game" or "wish we had a shorter run rule"; that is a clue that letting up or deliberate outs are ok. Even then, politely.
If not, play it out.

Of course, if the coach at 3rd is seen whispering to the runner and pointing to the pitcher, it is easy to be fooled by the runner at 1st stepping off. :rolleyes:

I take it they weren't playing under NFHS rules... Wouldn't be able to start a game short-handed.

Same goes for the implication of the 15 run lead.

I think NY uses USA rules.

Here in NH we have a state adopted 12-run rule.

I suspect many states that play under NFHS have some state adopted changes or additions.

For example, we also "permit" the use of the safety base. It's not required.

We have run rules, 10 after 5 innings or for sub varsity 15 after 4 but only at the option of the losing coach. Plus sub varsity is a 1:45 time limit, but you have to get to the run rule innings first.

While this may true in some cases, fact of the matter is that they have already been "shown up" prior to the dominant team showing "mercy".

The "act" of pretending to be shown up is merely an attempt by some coaches to retain a false element of dignity for the inferior team and the good old fashion ass-whoopin.

Think about it this way: Even a dog knows when they have been kicked intentionally or accidentally tripped over.

I've been on the receiving end and the giving end of the miracle called stepping off base intentionally. If I ever had an opposing coach go ballistic on me for stepping off the base, I'd probably go to the PU and explain that I tried to do the right thing but they don't want it in a loud enough voice that the parents behind the screen heard me. And then everybody there could possibly be late for school or work the next day.

Rookie

Why? The PU shouldn't care. For that matter, I'm not comfortable in these "good hearted" coaches putting the umpire in the middle.

Just play the ball game.

I imagine there's quite a few PU's on this forum who would indeed care (or at least be curious) about why a coach suddenly told his players to put their foot back on the accelerator and "play the ball game", especially if it meant that particular inning could last forever. PU wouldn't be put in the "middle". They would just be informed, out of respect.

I would think most PU's would figure it out without being informed unless they were especially dim or doing their first game.

You would think, wouldn't you.

Thankfully 'stepping off' is accepted in our area.

To the original poster - JV is like 10U rec ball - weird stuff happens ALL the time - often because the players have no idea what they SHOULD be doing.

Actually did a game last week - it was technically a Varsity game but virtually none of the players are really softball players. However they are all athletes - most of them VERY, VERY good athletes many with commitments to colleges for basketball or volleyball. So we have two pitchers who threw about 30mph for occasional strikes. So we have lots of walks, plus we have giant, slowly thrown meatballs being hit HARD by natural athletes and actually fielded quite well when the opportunity arose. So there is base runners everywhere, no one can slide, hard hit and thrown balls (except pitcher) and so on... Really had to stay on your toes for these games. Ended up 30-15...

We use USA JO rules, with lots of modifications, especially in regard to
umpire base mechanics. Like I have said before, Jay Miner is our rules interpreter, it's possible you've seen some of our mechanics in his REFEREE column.

But yes, here you can start with 8.