Mens 12" slow pitch play
 

I have been doing mens 16" this summer and was asked to do 3 12" games on Monday. First 2 games no problems. Third game is 1st place against 2nd. Lots of chatter frrom both teams especially about balls and strikes- I guess looking for an edge from me. The situation is we have one out and R1 on 2b and R2 on 1b. Batter rips a liner to center and the ball is trapped but such that the F8 quickly fields it on a very short hop and fires back into the infield. I have my arms out signalling a trap and yelling trap, but with all the players from both sides yelling I might not have been heard. Anyway throw comes in to F6 who tags R1 who is still standing on 2b thinking the ball was caught. Then F6 throws to F3 who tags out R2 who also hasn't moved. I call the double play and the team at bat goes ballistic cause I didn't call the trap early or loud enough. I ask just exactly what is my responsibility here? I know when a ball is hit down the line all I am required to do is signal fair. How about in this situation I described? I'm thinking I'm doing the right thing by trying to let the runners know that the ball was trapped by yelling trap but after the reaction I got I'm thinking just signal safe and let them figure it out. As it was neither of the base runners could figure out why they were out so maybe I was just dealing with a bunch of muscle bound so called softball players who don't know what they are doing. Maybe another team would have reacted differently.

Or maybe the defender caught the ball :D

You did right. The runners have coaches which are supposed to coach them. It is their responsibility to understand what the umpire ruled.

This is one where I feel the "one word mechanic" works better.

Signal safe, and loudly call NO, even repeating it a couple of times.

If you call NO CATCH, some will not hear the "NO" part.

"Trap" is okay, but "NO" is hard to not hear by itself.

I actually verbalize nothing at all while signaling safe, sometimes two or three times to make my call clear. However, I disagree with verbalizing a call in this scenario, as verbal calls can easily be confused in the way JEL mentioned. Heck, some umps often yell something so horribly unintelligible, having them call "no" can possibly confuse the players even more.

Didn't we have this discussion a while back? :)

Found it... Here

No, the defender did not catch the ball. I'm sure I would have heard them loud and clear complaining if the ball was caught and I ruled trap but that didn't happen.

Chas, hello, Chas? This is your Sense Of Humor. Please note that the smiley face Mike included in the last post was to indicate humor, possibly a joke.

Have a good day.

SOH

The last national ASA clinic i went to it was pushed to use the one word with the signal such as NO, OUT or SAFE

I saw the smiley face. I got what you meant. I took no offense to your comment. I was just trying to emphasize that had the ball been caught I would have really heard it from this particular bunch.

That obviously wasn't this year. 2007 mechanics changes allows multiple word commands in addition to the one word commands. For instance, we can now use "did she go" versus "swing" on check swings.

Exactly, but I still find myself saying single word commands for the most part (except for "under the tag", which just seems to flow naturally)...

I would clearly/loudly verbalize "TRAP" along with a safe signal. No need to do it multiple times as the base coaches have their jobs to do, and I shouldn't have to relay the info to any runners of any team.

Just my thoughts...