What Should I Have Done Here?

[mcrowder]

Even if it's safety and preventative, you're better off letting the coach deal with it. If you do coach the player directly, at least tell the coach that you've done so. YOU know what you mean when you tell a player to do something. But the player may not.

Take this to OBS. F4 obstructs on 3 consecutive plays, standing on the bag when the ball isn't coming. You say, "Hey second base - you can't stand on the bag without the ball. You're going to get hurt, or hurt someone else who's trying to run through here to third." Next play is a grounder to F6. F4 rushes over and stands OFF the bag, receives the throw as the runner from 1st comes in safe. Coach: "Billy, why were you off the base?!?!" Billy: "He told me I couldn't stand on the base!"

You can never go wrong letting the coach handle his players.

[BuggBob]

I'm very sorry that the girl got hurt, but it is not and can not be our job to coach players. If the catcher is too close, it must be up to the coach to move her -- not umpires. If the catcher is too far back or blocking our view making our job of calling balls and strikes difficult, it is the coach that should move her to help us get a better view. After you call a few pitches ball because you can't see them, most coaches will move their catchers so that you can see. But we should never tell a catcher to move -- even for her own safety.

Now before you break out the tar and feathers let me explain. I talked with several Baseball and Softball coaches, and they all agreed that it must be their job to move the catcher. While the umpires concern for their players safety was nice all the coaches said it clearly was not umpires job to move catcher or even ask for them to be moved. All of the coaches from my poll said they would not take kindly to the umpire asking for them to move the catcher and would be even more upset it the umpire moved the catch on their own. It was the universal opinon that they and they alone are responsible for the positioning of their players. They also agreed that umpires who coach their players make the coaches job even more difficult.

If we don't move the catcher and she gets hurt, we are not responsible (everybody has already agreed to that) but what would happen if we did moved a catcher and she still got hurt, now who would be responsible?

Bugg