Educating teams in ASA rules

[Bluefoot]

I've opted to digress from the 3 warmup pitches/ASA SP rule by starting a new thread, here.

As I continue to study and learn the rules, I enjoy helping players, who are interested, to learn as well. I've tried to follow Mike's advice from months ago that during the game is not the time to do this. As I become more experienced and familiar to the players/teams, they have been seeking me out more before/after games to discuss rules and their applications. This happens only with a small minority of players, since most SP Rec players "know it all" already. But the ones who want to learn, are almost always intelligent and polite about it. It's funny to "see the light bulb go on" when you see that they finally realize something that they previously misunderstood. Doing this outside of game situation obviously works best, since it's not in the heat of the moment and is not confrontational.

For the league that I work the most, I attended the pre-season coaches' meetings and provided printouts of the new 2004 rules. Most of the meeting consisted of discussion of the rules, and Q & A with me, and cleared up alot of their misunderstandings about some rules. I did this because I knew noone else was going to help them out with the new rules, (even themselves) and it's made my job somewhat easier in that league.

You may think I'm nuts for putting this much of an effort forward, but when I made the switch from player to umpire, I did it because I believed that there was a need in the leagues in my area for better umpires, who hustled more, who were more knowledgeable, and who cared about what they were doing. I've actually grown to enjoy umpiring more than playing. When players from even the losing team tell me, "Good game, Blue," I know I made the right choice. But it doesn't happen all of the time!

[chuck chopper]

Sean, I am going thru the same experiences in my area (East side of Baltimore County, Md). Our little group of umps (20) provides a service to 5 in-house leagues (1-fast pitch and 4-modified fast pitch) we also serve a large group of 13 Rec councils who play travel and they play (modified fast pitch). For 8 years they have been slow pitch and want to slowly work their way up to fast pitch perhaps a 3 year plan for 11-13, 14-17 ages. ALL of them have coaches and executive boards that change every year. So the education of coaches in ASA rules & interpretation, as well as the creation and enforcement of THEIR league rules all happens in February-April. Once these 6 groups make their final rules & schedules then WE Umps have our meetings, and actually have about 4 meetings to cover the rule book from front to back..mostly for the new Umpires.
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This education back & forth and helping these people with their program is key to its success. I have seen many conversations about various topics on this board. You can see right away that some attitudes displayed on the board come from Umps that do not get involved with league Officials as you & I do. So in a way it is a good experience to see the mind-set of other Umps in the Country who do "School Ball" only, just to get a glimpse of how the other side thinks.
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EPILOGUE: The success of softball lie's in Rec. level play growing. Just keep on helping where ever you see it needed. However their is only so much we can do at the time the game is happening.

[Shmuelg]

Keep up the good work, folks.

I can tell you how we do it here in Israel:

We have a competitive men's fastpitch leage, and the board of directors of the league requires each team to furnish two names of people to go to the umpiring course, which takes place Feb-March. The course goes over rules, mechanics, and situations. We also have practice runs umping Junior national and Women's national practice games, with comments after the game, and sometimes during it.

That that there are several umps who play on each team helps the game go better all around. For instance, when an ump calls someone safe when he's out, and the reason he did that was because he did not see the play, the players understand. Or the proper way to make an appeal. Or when the ump says nothing on a ball that went down the foul-line and might have been foul, might have been fair (if he says nothing, it's fair). Or what the players can do on an infield fly. Or what can be argued (rules points, or "ask for help"), and what cannot (judgement calls).

After the game, when everyone is in line doing the "good game" handshake, the umps are on the side, and get a handshake as well.