Force Play

[Steve M]

Originally Posted by Andy

Worked a tournament this past summer where the OP situation presented resulted in a protest.

R1 on first, two outs.
BR hits ground ball up the middle, F6 dives for the ball and catches it in her glove while she is lying on the field near second.
F6 reaches out with the non-glove hand and touches second base well before R1 arrives.

BU calls runner SAFE!!!!!!!

Defensive coach comes out to calmly discuss call. BU tells him that F6 must tag second base with her foot to get the out. DC goes to the PU.

PU agrees with BU call and reason!!!!

I'm up in the scorer's booth on my off game watching all of this, I saw the DC hand the PU money and said....we've got a protest!

When the BU came upstairs and told us what the protest was about, the site UIC, myself, and another umpire in the room just about fell over.

We told both him and the PU that they were wrong and to give the coach his money back.

These two guys did not last very much longer in the tournament

OMG
ROFLMAO - especially after some wine
Been there, done that, always glad to see that it happens to somebody else.

[tcblue13]

Let's add a wrinkle.
The Umpires huddle. PU disagrees with BU and instructs BU that he needs to reverse the call. But BU stands by his initial ruling. This should have no effect on the field of play should it since the umpires discussed this privately. But what about their cooperation on the field after this and once it is protested and the protest is upheld what about the rest of the tourney. Finally brethren, have you ever had situations where you and your partner disagreed on a ruling and how did you handle it?

[BretMan]

One umpire can "instruct" the other all he wants, but if they're following standard procedures the call belongs to the umpire that made it. It is his alone to change or stick with and he can either listen to his partner's advice or ignore it. One umpire can't overrule another.

Any cooperation between the two for the rest of the tournament should be guided by these exact same procedures.

Have I ever had something like this come up? Yes, a few times. How did I handle it? Exactly like I described above.

We huddle, I tell him what I saw, he tells me what he saw, and then the umpire that made the call either changes it or he doesn't. If it's the wrong call, leave it to the coaches to file their protests and let the protest committee sort it out.

And we definitely talk it over after the game, far away from the maddening crowd.

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by BretMan

...far away from the maddening crowd.

Far from the Madding Crowd is a novel by Thomas Hardy. The title comes from a poem by Thomas Gray - Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

Maybe your crowd WAS maddening, or perhaps they were actually madding (frenzied). Or, possibly, both.