question for umpires
 

Can anyone explain this umpire's actions?

12U NSA tournament game.
From the second inning on the opposing coach starts chirping that my pitcher is "quick pitching" or not presenting correctly. What he didn't like is that my pitcher holds the ball in her glove hand and doesn't show the ball at all until she starts the upward swing of her pitch. Blue tells him she is legal and tells me not to worry about when I ask whats going on.

Then, bottom of the last inning with about 5 min left in a time limit game, score tied one to one, runner on first one out, the ump goes out to my pitcher and tells her she has to change her motion and start with the ball in her pitching hand, and bring it to her glove before she starts her motion.

His reason? The other coach and fans have been complaining all game!

Maybe he was tired of having one side only complain and wanted to make it unanimous.

:
:D


Well put.

If your pitcher is doing nothing illegal, then if he calls an illegal pitch when you tell your pitcher to keep pitching the way she has the whole game, ask him what rule he's using to call your pitcher's motion illegal. Then, assuming there is no rule that she is actually breaking, you have a protestable situation.

NSA Pitching rules

Rule 6, Section 1, a. - "The pitcher shall take a position with both feet on the ground and in contact with the pitching plate. The hands shall be seperated with the ball being held in either the glove or pitching hand."

How hard is that to understand. Your game umpire screwed up.

I'm hoping you said, "Coach, what exactly is my pitcher doing that you judge to be illegal?"

And then when the umpire told you something that you believe was entirely legal, you said, "I wish to protest this game."

If you're right and he's wrong, you get some free ball with some free umpiring... and he has to come out, be embarrassed and call some more ball without being paid. It's a hard way for him to learn, but it would be a nice way to you to show your players a structured way to handle a disagreement.

SCUmp,

What are you refering to here? I work for NSA in Maryland and we have no procedure that calls for an umpire to be removed from the game or to lose his game fee due to a protest.

If a coach wishes to protest a game, they must put up a $75 protest fee. The matter is brought to the tournament UIC for a ruling. If the ruling goes against the protesting team, they forfeit their $75 fee and the game is continued from that point. If the protest is upheld, a correct ruling is issued by the UIC and the game continues from the same point. There may be some embarrasment :o for the game umpire but that umpire is not removed from the game and does not suffer any financial consequences.:mad:

Tournament protest fees are an embarrassment to the game. Quite often, it allows a poor ruling to go unchecked. If you are going to run a tournament, that is part of doing business. I've seen TD's play the game on both sides of the fence, depending on who they want to piss off and whether they want to keep a friendly team happy or the money.

Besides the other nonsense, as soon as you hear the word present or presenting about a pitcher, you know the speaker is having a Little League brain freeze.

Sorry about that, I did not mean to imply either.

The following is the procedure in most organizations I have been in: if a protest is upheld and the game is replayed from the point of protest, the original umpiring crew must return to finish their game whenever the remaining innings are re-scheduled for continuation. For those subsequent few innings, the umpires are not paid milage nor fees.

Fortunately it has not happened to me (yet?) I have heard the "pre-game" for these few subsequent innings usually starts with a re-cap of the situation and ultimate ruling. I have heard it is not much of a problem other than the crew having egg on their face.

Thanks for the replies folks.

The tournament rule was " no protests" so that wasn't an option. With the time limit so close I really felt hamstrung, so I let it go.

I've already got a printout of the rule laminated and sitting in my wallet just in case.

Funny thing was I asked the ump after the game, why he approached my pitcher and he had no explanation. He repeated that the motion was legal, but he felt he had to address the other teams complaints!

We lost the game after a walk ,a strikeout, a bunt, and a throwing error with two outs and bases loaded. Tough lesson for the kids, we put ourselves in position to lose with mental errors earlier in the game, but i think the umps bad judgement tipped the scales.

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Funny thing was I asked the ump after the game, why he approached my pitcher and he had no explanation. He repeated that the motion was legal, but he felt he had to address the other teams complaints!


kinda sounds like the US Congress and how they plan to handle the illegal immigration problem in this country!!

That assumes there is a protest procedure. NFHS up here doesn't allow protests. Some ASA tournaments don't either. :eek:

IMO the umpire was 1/2 right. He needed to address the other teams complaints......by telling them in the 1st inning that in his opinion her actions were legal. Any subsequent complaints he should have answered, "We have discussed this she is legal, I am watching her to see if anything changes in her delivery but we are done discussing this." That would have addressed their concerns, but going out to talk to a pitcher about a legal delivery is flat out wrong!!!!!!

Or illegal. The umpire has no business out at the plate. JMO.

If it is illegal, make the call. Explain it to the manager if asked.