Props to ASA on the new DVD

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by wadeintothem

A perfect example is going out in 3 man.. for simplicity, ASA sends you out on a can of corn; they dont trust their umpires to to think so the general rule is "go out on everything" and in fact that is enforced on national evals.

That isn't true, but yes, I'm going out on a fly ball. It is called "responsibility". To be so pretentuous as to presume a fly ball will be a "can of corn", IMO, demonstrates your contempt for the nuances of the game.

Irishmike represents the stubborn "we can't change" old guard and ASA will improve as that old guard fades away and gets replaced with young blood and fresh ideas and a willingness to look to other places for ways to improve. There are many who wont even look at NCAA to see what they are doing. They still believe ASA trained these NCAA umpires, so there is nothing to learn from them. Mention a NCAA method at NUS (I did)... thats good for a laugh or two.

For someone who does what you do, you certainly talk out your *** alot. WTF do you know about me? Besides not a ****ing thing, you know even less.

Many of the people you refer to as "stubborn" or "Old Guard" routinely offer alternatives. And they will question what they believe something is right.

ASA is the foundation of fast pitch umpiring - NCAA built upon it significantly. Many, for their own insecurities, refuse to see how its being done elsewhere and how those ideas might improve our own umpiring.

Their excuse when they admit flaw: well we gotta train ___{insertnumberhere} umpires wah wah, and many are stupid, so we can't teach that.

This is true and I've had this conversation with MB, HP and a number of other initials that would burn too much space to list. But it isn't because the people are stupid. It is KISS. For a lot of the ball worked on the local fields, there is no need for high-level mechanics for low-level play.

Not all umpires aspire to move up the ranks and much of their training needs to include survival and that is what the basic mechanics provide. These umpires are in the majority of registrations in many areas. You try to hold them to national tournament standards for umpires and you will lose many who just don't want to be bothered with it. In turn, games, leagues and tournaments become extremely difficult to cover. That is not fair to the umpire or players.

Now comes the DVD... and they could if they wanted too, go deeper into the systems.

Like it or not, they still have a product to sell and expenses to recoup. The DVD was basic championship play as it was meant to be. There is already another DVD in production that will probably cover the one-umpire and three-umpire systems. There are many other options which are being studied for the future.

Thanks for playing. One day you may actually get IT and I'm not referring to the computer world.

And this is for you.