A mechanics issue
 

Not really an issue, but food for thought.

College fall ball. SRW is PU, Promising Rookie is BU, moi is evaluating and chatting up pretty women.

R2 and R3, less than 2 outs. BU is in C. Low line drive hit to left, fairly close to foul line. BU comes inside to take tag on R2. PU has great position for catch and tag at 3B. R3 brain farts and doesn't tag up, then dashes back to the bag. LF throws a rope to 3B for a banger, and R3 is out.

It was a great call.

SRW was there to make it. BUT...he saw promising rookie come dashing over toward 3B. It was obvious BU was going to make the call, so SRW backed off and let him call the out.

Now, the whole thing looked much more fluid than what you might think while reading this, which led to considerable discussion after the game at the park and while sampling the finest offerings of malted barley.

WHAT IF...

PU has to be up the line considerably because of fair/foul and catch/trap. One "problem" is that this leaves HP a little open from an umpiring perspective. While I have no doubt SRW would have been in great position to make any call, still...

The way it worked out, BU covering this made a lot of sense. Of course, there are problems with it, including lack of coverage on R2.

Just searching for thoughts...

Not having an umpire for R2 would be more of a concern than having home uncovered. Since PU is up the line to make call on line drive, it's just a matter of him reading the play and moving to either home or 3rd for any play on R3. For BU to see catch near the line and tag at 2nd, he would have to pivot to a position much closer to 2nd than 3rd, leaving him farther from a play at third than the PU should be. If he makes it far enough to have any credibility for a call at 3rd, he will have lost both distance and angle for a tag play on R2 at 2nd.

Having said that, the PU made a good decision by backing off once he saw BU had committed to making the call at 3rd. I would say his ability to read his partner was the key to how fluid this play looked. Had he forced the proper mechanic in this situation, it could have led to the always popular double call at 3rd. This is definitely a lesson better learned over some of your "malted barley" than on the field.

If R3 was the call at 3B, it IS the BU's call assuming we are using softball designations here. Otherwise, I'd like to know how R3 got in front of R2.

bkbjones goofed. R3 in his post is the runner at 3b, R2 is at 2B.

By "softball", I'm assuming you mean ASA. My NCAA manual has R1, R2, and R3 at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively. Since this was a college game, bkbjones' designations seem appropriate.

Imagine that, NCAA bucking the trend. Who would have thought?

I stand corrected.

Did not. :p

Two runners, two umpires. Tag and subsequent play on lead runner starting from third belong to PU, by standard two umpire mechanics; BU has trail. That makes obvious sense.

But, BU had a great angle, as it turns out, on this play. Can you vary? Sure, and SRW saw and read the variation. In a perfect world, you want BU to verbalize the variation in mechanics; but, since SRW read it, good enough. Tell promising rookie a good read, but 1) understand that you left the trail uncovered, and 2) communicate when you vary from book, just to be sure there is no double call.

Good read by Sean, as well.

1. I think you were paying too much attention to the lower priority task. :D

2. I think most of the senior guys I work would have handled it the same way. In this slightly strange situation I think the deviation works well. Maybe verbal communication would have been better, but I think the BU moving emphatically toward 3B was pretty good non-verbal communication. (It was good his partner "heard" it.)