i never "offer" info to baserunners ... but i'll answer honestly one if asked something & its the time to do so

It is the attitude of most of the Div I coaches, and several of those from D II and lower. It is the attitude of most of the conference officials, and coordinators, who appear mostly worried about answering the coaches' concerns, never really adressing deplorable behavior by the coaches. Yes, it is our's to handle when it crosses the line, but we are rarely backed on anything but outrageous behavior.

In my personal opinion, far too many (in fact, damn near all) NCAA umpires attempt to ignore the consistent stream of disagreements with ball/strike judgments, fair/foul decisions, safe/out decisions. No one will tell a coach that sitting there disagreeing verbally with every call is unsportsmanlike, or that coming out to argue purely judgment calls that they KNOW from 80 feet away at a bad angle that we missed, that is "horrible", and on, and on.

No one will enforce the NCAA rules that have been newly added to require batters and pitchers to get it going; and, absolutely NO ONE has the balls to refuse to grant "time" to a batter who simply requests it to control the pitcher, despite the direction from the highest levels to NOT GRANT TIME. Rarely will any umpire refuse to award a base to a batter who is hit by a pitch while making no effort to avoid; I know some who will award first base to a batter who has obviously and clearly leaned into a pitch. Because they are afraid the coaches will blacklist them, most simply want to survive their games, and hope the adage of the umpire who isn't noticed will carry them to the promised land.

And now it is sliding down to high school, the speed up rules and don't grant time rulings. Georgia is a fall high school softball state, I have called almost 60 games this year, watched (evaluated) almost 60 more, and have never seen even one umpire other than me refuse to grant a batter time. Not even in my own association, even working with me.

Hell, yeah, we are subservient. More in NCAA than anywhere else, but overall, the umpires have no balls.

Glad you don't throw your hands up like a TD/FG because the correct signal is with palms facing forward, not toward each other. :rolleyes: :)

I couldn't survive in that world. Thanks for the reply.

I was told by our ASA District UIC here to yell "foul", not "foul ball". Rationale: players could become confused as to whether the call was a foul or a ball. :confused:

My USSSA state UIC told me to yell "foul ball". Rationale: so the players would know the ball went foul, and not to confuse the players with the words foul and out, which may sound the same from a distance. :confused:

The ASA state UIC said I could yell either one. Rationale: who the hell cares about the players, your mechanics are more important. :confused:

And I can't tell you how many times I've had a player go "I'm out?" when they think the umpire said "out" instead of "foul." Not that it's a big deal, because a foul ball's a dead ball, but still...

One more example of why those "one word" calls aren't always a perfect solution.

Thus my Pandora's Box dilemma. No wonder my counseling bill is racking up when softball season rolls around.

Odd...I have never had any confusion that I can recall when a ball is hit foul and I simply call "foul." If they think that I called them out, then they deserve to be out in my opinion. These must not be very seasoned players y'all are talking about.

I have never had any confusion or problems with the one word calls, either.

either have I - that I can recall

And one shouldn't as long as the umpire remembers this is a four-letter word that begins with the letter "F" and prounounces it in that manner.

I'm struggling to remember a player thinking they were out when they were not. ;) ;) :p :D

As much as that should be the case, imagine having to yell it while a plane is flying over. It seems like all the complexes I work at here are in the flight path of some type of aircraft making a landing or take off. :rolleyes: The worse one is the one that's directly in the path of the Air Force base, and really drives the players crazy when the AF guys are working on touch and go landings and take-offs. A plane comes around just about every 10 minutes or so...I almost can do the time limit in my head from the bases based on the planes coming and going, LOL.