Preventative officiating, or not?

[Andy]

HS State tournament game this last Saturday, loser goes home. I am PU

Two evenly matched teams, close ball game throughout.

Home team DP (#10) comes to bat and get a base hit. Coach substitutes a faster runner (#5) for the DP. The half inning ends a couple of batters later with no runners scoring. Coach says nothing to me about re-entering #10.

Two innings later, the home team DP spot is due up and #10 steps into the box. Still nothing has been said about re-entering #10. R1 is on first, #10 gets a single that advances R1 to third. Game is tied at this point and the home team coach approaches me and asks if he has used his offensive conference in the inning, I tell him that he has not. He wants time to talk to his batter and runners - I grant time.

After speaking to his players, he approaches me with his line up in hand, so I pull mine lineup holder out anticipating a lineup change. When he gets to me, he is looking at his lineup with a confused look on his face, I ask him if he wants to make a change, no answer. I then ask him if wants to re-enter #10, he says - Yes, that's what I want to do! I announce the re-entry.

My question - should I have mentioned that to him at all or just left it alone until the visitors said something?

[AtlUmpSteve]

My opinion; you handled it perfectly. You didn't prompt him until it was clear what he wanted, but didn't know how or if he should say it.

[Dakota]

Unless there is something physical that makes one or the other of these players stand out, this is not something I would have noticed anyway.

ASA and NFHS handle this situation differently, and with different penalties. ASA allows the coach to "late announce" the re-entry, so long as it happens before the opposing coach protests. NFHS has no such allowance for the coach to "late announce", but OTOH, the NFHS penalty for the first occurance is much less severe than ASA's penalty.

Since NFHS does not allow for the late reporting of the re-entry, I think you should have also warned the coach/team about the unreported sub.

[MNBlue]

It's funny how differently coaches look at this compared to umpires. I was reading this to a coach I know, and the coach stated the we should not say anything, and allow the defense to appeal. NFHS, the penalty for the first un-reported sub is just a warning. If we never give the warning, the coach, can in actuality, have three occurances of an un-reported sub before the coach and sub are restricted. So, what my coaching friend is saying is that we need to get the first warning on the books, so if the coach does it again, intentionally or not, then there are consequences for their either ignorant or deliberate violation of the rules.

I understand that position, however, I would still ask the coach if he wanted to re-enter #10.

[SRW]

I think this was perfectly handled, as others have said. You saw that he wanted to make the change, you allowed him the opportunity, then when you saw he didn't know how to admit that he forgot to re-enter the starter, you prompted him with what he needed. By doing it the way you did, you averted a clusterf*k later on with a potential unreported sub, and allowed the coach and the player to keep playing.

[IRISHMAFIA]

I agree, you handled the situation well.

It's funny sometimes how an umpire will know what the coach means to do better than the coach.

If a substitution is obviously situational and I have a sense there will be a re-entry or follow-up change, I will make a concerted effort to make eye contact with the coach at the end of the half-inning. I don't say anything, but some of these coaches have so much going on in there (leave it alone ), sometimes just seeing you look at them will make that light bulb come on. If there is no effort to make a change, I let it go and move on with the game.

[NCASAUmp]

I think the coach was probably going there already, just based off the fact that he approached you and didn't quite know exactly what he should say. I don't know NFHS, but ASA allows this with no penalty (so long as the player may re-enter) if the offended team doesn't discover it first.

You straddled the line a little bit there, but sometimes for the sake of keeping the game moving along (and avoiding a long-winded explanation from the coach as to why he's so confused), you can push the line a tad.