ASA Men's B FP National Report
 

I have returned from the Men's B National this past weekend in Prescott, AZ.
For those of you not familiar with the area, Prescott is at a 5000+ foot altitude in NW Arizona. Cool weather, nice facilities for softball and the city does an outstanding job in supporting the tournament in all areas.

The tournament had 19 teams, up from 6 a year ago, when the tournament was held somewhere in Texas.

Each game of the tournament used the 3 umpire system, so that was a good opportunity to use the mechanics. I do not have the opportunity to do as much Men's ball as I would like, so I consider these tournaments a challenge for me. I had been stressing about how to call the mens strike zone, but decided to just go with the NCAA zone. After my first plate game, the UIC, Malcolm Boyles, gave me a little tip on how to set my feet...that worked wonders and I was very pleased with my plate work for the tournament. Mens ball is notorious for the amount of pissing and moaning about the zone and everything else, but in each of my games, the whining pretty much stopped after the first inning.

As I mentioned, Malcolm Boyles was the tournament UIC. What a pleasure to work for him! He gave me some great information and was very easy to talk to and get along with. Jim Lykins (Nevada UIC) even came down for part of the tournament.

We had about a 5 hour rain delay on Saturday....since the tournament was all at one four field complex and all of the umpires were there it was a great opportunity to get to know some of the other guys. Probably the most fun I have had at a national and personally, my best tournament as an umpire.

I have posted some pictures on my facebook page...let me know if you want the link. I took them all with my phone, so the quality is not the greatest, but there are some decent ones.

Is this information a secret, or can you share with us what you learned?

I saw your pics on face book (fire your photographer) but I'm sure the tourney was great! I'm lucky enough to be selected to the NAFA Masters World Series (I didnt name the thing mike :D) in a few weeks and I'm looking forward to that, likely many of the same teams you had.

Like you, I enjoy men's ball. I think of it as both the apex of the sport and the dirt and grime of the sport, all at once. Not that dirt and grime is all that bad... :D

Just out of curiousity, what color were the balls (the ones used in the game) when the game started and what color were they when it was over?

He told me to point my toes out a bit when I set in my heel-toe. The object of this is to have your knees over your toes. This helped me lock into postion when I went set and seemed to relieve some stress from the knees.

I said I took them with my phone...and some of the pictures were after a few, OK...several, beers! :)

We started with white softballs (because the optic yellow balls are for girls!). They were kind of a dingy brownish-gray color by the end of the game.

They didn't put anything on the ball, did they? :rolleyes:

Probably not - but I'll bet they all had a great grip on the ball - and maybe a rag in the back pocket.:D The typical men's pitcher has a really strong grip - like a gorilla.

Can't be, according to GG and the folks who proposed it's legality, it doesn't transfer to the ball.