Working the rim

[DTQ_Blue]

I started out in hardball and was trained as BU in a 2 man system to always move into the infield from A when the ball is hit to the outfield. I started doing softball with NSA last year and was trained the same, so I thought that this was a cardinal rule for all umpiring. Now I may be working some PONY this year and have been looking at thier umpire manual. It describes a mechanic called working the rim where if the BR has the possibility of a triple on a ball hit to the left half of the outfield, BU follows her to 2B outside of the basepath and then moves inside the basepath to take BR to third.

I'm curious about other levels of softball, ASA, NCAA etc., do they teach the "rim," and also would like to hear any comments on these 2 different approaches.

I'd like to try the rim. I'm scheduled to do an NSA tournament this w/e and if I tell my PU that I'll be working the rim, he'll probably think I'm a heretic.