getting inside

[Skahtboi]

Originally Posted by topper

What an umpire does when the ball is in play is exponentially more important than these points. Too much time is spent "majoring on the minors" these days. Do what makes sense. I don't clean a base unless it needs it, but if it needs to be cleaned immediately after a call, I clean it. If a coach's perception of this causes them to come out, fine. I'll probably have them take their perception and their a$$ back to the dugout.

So many umpires that I work with and evaluate are so concerned with these types of ancillary points that the rest of their game, the important parts, suffer. I do let those I'm teaching/evaluating know what the Staff expects when it comes to these things, but that's about as far as it goes. I'm much more concerned with an umpire's ability to call the game than his/her ability to buy the proper belt buckle or where/how they stand between innings.

Yeah, but some people get really, really hung up on these things. I was working a tournament a while back, three man crew. In one game, as U1, I walked over behind second base to talk with my partner about a rotation issue I had noticed. Later, in another game, I was U3. There was a team that was warming up right where tradition has me standing, between innings, so I opted for the old just off the foul line a few feet in from third. In both cases, I got from the evaluator the old "where are you supposed to be between innings?!" While the first instance was deemed acceptable, with furrowed brow, I was told in the second instance that I should have moved the players warming up back. That had me wondering, why then, do we have alternate between inning positions?

Basically, though, these little nuances are little more than a case of "when in Rome...etc."