NFHS 3' Lane Presentation

[celebur]

Originally Posted by shagpal

demanding clarification while a presenter has the floor to me is just not right to me.

Tangent much? How is this relevant to this thread so far?

[shagpal]

I see no tangent, I immediately and directly answered as to what might be a better course of action at that time, which to me is nada. this doesn't mean do nothing ever, it means, not at that time.

as I suggested from my first reply, and IMHO, this is about "saving face" vs. saving the message. the message was already out. to the OP, it might seem urgent to contain damage by putting a fellow umpire on the spot, right on the spot, meaning, the message is more important than the messenger. I don't see it that way, and that is no tangent. it is simply a point of view that might or might no differ from what you might or might not see.

Originally Posted by celebur

Tangent much? How is this relevant to this thread so far?

[bigsig]

I had a coach present this very argument to me a few years ago in a rec league game. BR hit a single to the outfield and made a wide looping turn around 1B. he wanted me to call her out for being out of the 3' line. When i told him she could run into center field if she wanted to his response was" oh yah, then why to they have a 3' foot line there!"

I told him to read the rule book again.

[celebur]

Originally Posted by shagpal

I see no tangent, I immediately and directly answered as to what might be a better course of action at that time, which to me is nada. this doesn't mean do nothing ever, it means, not at that time.

as I suggested from my first reply, and IMHO, this is about "saving face" vs. saving the message. the message was already out. to the OP, it might seem urgent to contain damage by putting a fellow umpire on the spot, right on the spot, meaning, the message is more important than the messenger. I don't see it that way, and that is no tangent. it is simply a point of view that might or might no differ from what you might or might not see.

The tangent is that you "immediately and directly answered as to what might be a better course of action at that time" based on the bias that YOU read into the OP. Without that bias, your point is unnecessary and irrelevant. . .thus a tangent.

[shagpal]

there is no tangent. you are milking it for whatever you can get.

Originally Posted by celebur

The tangent is that you "immediately and directly answered as to what might be a better course of action at that time" based on the bias that YOU read into the OP. Without that bias, your point is unnecessary and irrelevant. . .thus a tangent.

[celebur]

Originally Posted by shagpal

there is no tangent. you are milking it for whatever you can get.

It's simply not possible to milk something that's not even wrong.

[shagpal]

there's nothing wrong. you are tangent.

Originally Posted by celebur

It's simply not possible to milk something that's not even wrong.

[BretMan]

I just came across the slew of training videos for softball posted on the NFHS website- didn't even realize that all of those were posted there. There is a video clip about the three-foot running lane and it also says the batter-runner "must run in the three-foot running lane".

Well, no she doesn't...

I've also had this same thing happen to me recently, where a classroom instructor is giving a presentation and mis-stating rules. It bugs me, but I just kind of gritted my teeth and kept quiet.

A little background...

After a decade of working ASA ball, NSA ball and NFHS baseball, I decided I'd get certified for NFHS softball. I've worked in a local league that uses FED rules for about six years, so I already have a good handle on the rule differences. I might not even wind up working many high school softball games at all, since I usually have a full slate of baseball in the spring, before the ASA season starts.

Getting certified requires 25 hours of classroom training, which we're about half-way through right now and, of course, passing he FED test. Most in this class are totally new softball umpires, a few are ASA guys and a few are experienced baseball officials.

Anyhow, last week we were going through Rule 4 and 5 (yawn). During the course of the presentation, the instructor stated that:

- Coaches do not present the ground rules. We should not ask the home coach to tell us what ground rules are in effect. The umpires, and solely the umpires, are to dictate the ground rules to the coaches, not the other way around.

This is contrary to the written rules covering the pre-game conference.

- Whenever a fair batted ball touches an umpire the ball is dead.

Not if it's been touched by a fielder or passed by them.

- Whenever a fair batted ball touches a runner after it has passed a fielder, the ball remains live.

Not if another fielder has a play.

There were more, but those are the ones I remember off hand. There seems to be a trend in this class of the instructors kind of giving half the rule and leaving out some important details, or passing off personal opinion that is contrary to written NFHS guidelines. I can muddle through and figure it out, but I'm a little worried about the guys who are total rookies taking this stuff as the gospel truth.