When to Overrule?

[Dukat]

I had a situation last night in my game that brought a SIT that I thought would be perfect here:

SIT: Runners on 1st and 2nd, 1 out. Infield Fly and runners run. As the runner is going back to 1st she is tagged. FU calls safe and PU immediately without being asked or appealed overrules and calls her out. Now she was my player and I freely admit she was out but my question is, should the PU overrule without appeal?

[SamNVa]

One umpire should NEVER EVER overrule another umpire.

The second umpire can let the first umpire know if they have seen something that might affect the first umpire's call (e.g. the second umpire might see a ball rolling on the ground after a out call on a tag), but the call still remains with the first umpire.

It happens, on occasion the both umpire's will make a call on the same play. It isn't supposed to happen, but sometimes it does. In this case, the umpires should get together and parlay, but the ultimate call resides with the PU in this case.

[Dukat]

One thing I did forget to mention was the FU was a rookie. Does this affect your opinion any?

[SamNVa]

Nope. Not at all, although it does explain the PU's actions. They were still inappropriate however.

[Steve M]

Duk,
Sam's right, don't ever overrule or correct without having called time & talked things over with your partner. When I work with a "young ump", I won't say or do anything when there's just bad judgement - we'll be sure to cover that in our post-game. If there's a rules problem, I'll ask if my partner wants some help - they know from our pre-game that what this question is really saying is "we've got a problem that we need to talk about and fix now."

[Dukat]

I thought the same way but didnt say anything because I knew the girl was out and all my fans were throwing out "The PU is the head guy who can overrule any call he wants" I have always heard that but have never seen a rule to that effect. Is that in the book or is that one of GulfCoastBlue's famous "Softball Myths"

[Gulf Coast Blue]

It's in Jim Booths Rule Myths Dukat.........

My feeling is the umpire did the "rookie" a big dis-service.

I once did something similar in our rookie "Umpires Tournament" on a call that was based on a misunderstanding of a rule by one of the rookies I was working with..........

I would never do it again.

Sometimes the best learning opportunities come from allowing a rookie to sort thing out and come for help when needed........they learn the proper way things are done and hopefully when they are more experienced, won't poach a rookies call when the situation occurs.

Joel

[Dukat]

Where is Jim Booth's List posted? My brother is a baseball umpire and a few of those questions he has brought up to me and we have discussed and I feel he would appreciate Jim's list.

[SamNVa]

Jim's rule myths can be found at the following address:

Baseball Rule Myths

Joel's softball version (in printable text form) can be found here:
Softball Rule Myths