Working with (not against) your partner
 

Varsity game with two above average teams. In NY, we use ASA rules.

Partner is PU. He's consistently ranked in the top 5 in our county at the varsity level.

Bottom 4, no score. R1 on first. First pitch to B3, DC argues R1 is leaving base early (she's not, she's rocking to get her motion, merely taking a LEAD). "Blue, you gotta call that...looked like she left a little early." I ignore the coach, as there is nothing to call.

Next pitch, B3 squares to bunt. The pitch is high and inside and hits her square on the hand. She didn't offer at the pitch, but didn't pull her bat back. PU yells dead ball, motions to first. DC argues that it should be a strike because she didn't pull the bat back. PU says "No, coach she pulled the bat back (which she didn't, but she didn't make an attempt at the pitch, either.) DC asks for appeal. My partner calls me in and asks me what I saw, so I told him I didn't see her "offer" at the pitch.

Partner turns to DC and says "my partner says she pulled the bat back coach." (I didn't say that!) I then explain to the coach what I DID say. Coach mumbles and walks away.

Two innings later, home team winning 2-0. Top 6th. R1 on first, B4 at bat. 2 out. First pitch, high and outside, partner loudly (as is his style) calls, "STRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IKE, on the swing!!!"

OC (at 3rd): "Are you saying strike? Was that on the pitch or the swing??!!"
PU: "on the swing coach, she went."
OC: (at 3rd): "No way.."
OC (at 1st): "can you ask for help on that???"
PU: "Sure.....(points to me in the B position) what do you got?"

*****worth note here, is that I didn't think she went*****

A look of dismay and "are you kidding me right now" came over my face as he pointed to me. I thought for a second, then realized that he is my only teammate and I wouldn't want him to look bad, especially AFTER he called her for swinging TWICE.
So......I gave the hammer, sticking by my partner.

OC at first says, "what are we asking him for, he hasn't been paying attention all game."

That coach paid attention the rest of the game on the bus. I assured him I'd pay attention to him leaving the field. And I did.

My WTF moment comes from my partner.....I felt as if I was left out to dry - two times, by early calls that should have either:
A: come to me immediately OR
B: Not come to me at all


Anyone care to help me out as far as what I did wrong here, or what I could have done differently? How would you have handled it? Is this a pregame partner discussion that I should have had with him? What about how I handled the coach. Was I right in tossing? I felt he crossed the line questioning my integrity.

Advise me please.

I can tell you this; after my partner calls a strike and then comes to me asking if they went, I would not even dignify it with an answer. After a strike is called, it is a strike. It is contrary to rule to even come to you. I have and would absolutely refuse to even answer. It is a strike at that point no matter what I thought. I would probably also tell my partner later that if you are going to come to me and then put words in my mouth to make me look like a jerk, we will probably not be working together in the future. This guy is in the top 5 ranking?? He must be friends with athletic directors.

Agree w/ Bill.

Any partner of mine asking for an appeal on a called strike loses a bunch of respect and probably gets blocked for the rest of the year. If he's sure enough to call a strike I'm dumb enough to let him.

On the toss....I'm usually pretty leanient on idiots but I would at least put his butt in the dugout for the rest of the night.

I've had rookie umpires point to me on a swinging strike, too. I'm not about to agree or disagree with him. I simply jog in and tell them that once you call a strike, its a strike and by rule, the base umpire cannot give his opinion. It stinks that I have to hold a rules clinic on the field, but I'm not going to break the rules just to support my partner when he is clearly in the wrong for pointing at me in the first place.

Interesting... "county" rating system?.... I'd like to see that list and a list of names of who's responsible for it.

Perfect.

Him:OC (at 1st): "can you ask for help on that???"
PU: "Sure.....(points to me in the B position) what do you got?"

Me:
BU: "I've got you calling a swinging strike that I can't UNCALL".

See my notes in blue.

Thank you to all for the replies; they are very helpful.

In New York, (at least on Long Island), officials are ranked or "rated" by each head coach. It is done by a weighted rating system. Here's how it works.

The ratings are 1- 5.
5- Superior official; capable of working any varsity playoff game, including championship game.
4.5- Excellent official; definitely belongs in the playoffs, but a shade below a superior official.
4- Good official; may do playoff games, but only in the early rounds.
3.5- acceptable; not playoff caliber.
3- needs improvement - not acceptable at this level.
2-poor
1- inadequate


a coach who rates 3 or below must write down the reasons for giving such a rating. It must be reviewed by the AD.

Weighted system:
So, lets assume coach A has 10 games in a season. 10 games =20 umpires. This coach gives every official a 4 rating. But the last game of the season he has you, and you do a great job. He gives you a 5. You average .95 point higher than what he gives other officials.

At the end of the season, all the rankings and ratings come in to the assigning office. They start all officials at a 10.000 scale. They then compile how you did with each coach relative to how they grade all officials. In the above example, if you averaged the same as all other officials with every coach except for that game where the coach thought you did well, your final rating would be 10.95. At the end of the season, the rankings basically work like this: 10.00 is a job well done. Below 10 is considered a below average umpire, and above 10 is considered an above average umpire. The tpp rankings are somewhere around 10.2 - 10.3 each year.

Each umpire is then ranked in the county via the weighted ratings. The top 16 varsity officials make the playoffs, however you must have officiated 14 games to be considered for the playoffs. The higher rated umpire does the plate. After the first round of the playoffs, we go to a three umpire system. Usually the top two officials in the county are asked to go to the state championships.


Long story short, the coaches rank the umpires. So, come playoff time, the coaches get the officials that all the coaches that year ranked as the best in the county. This system prevents a coach who has a vendetta to take it out on the officials. Also if you have a coach 4 times who is notoriously a tough rater, it won't affect your ratings if he rates you low, so long as he rates everyone low.

I hope I explained that well enough so as not to confuse.

(By the way, I was number 1 in my county last year. I'm kinda proud because I take my work very seriously and I work really hard. We do get paid very well, so the coaches and players deserve my best. The game I do that day is the most important game in the world to me, because it is to them.)

There is a similar system in place here. Problem is the coaches are not held accountable, they submit at leisure and rarely in a positive manner.

Almost always a complaint and the few positives often cited umpires more their ability to get along with the coaches. Often the case was umpires ignoring or making up their own rules to placate the coach.

When I chaired the rating committee, I could predict the winner of a game without looking at the teams' name on the card.

I find coaches rating umpires ludicrous. Half don't know how to do their own job, let alone ours.

Good advice from the others regarding how to handle these situations.

As far as the ejection goes, good call. I'd have done the same.

I agree with you 100% my state also does this, well it comes from the AD's computer but coaches have the most input in the rankings. However, what is a better system? I like ASA where you have a UIC at each tournament that is an umpire evaluating and rating all umpires there. But at the high school level (at least in my state) everyone is an independant contractor. The officials that would be good evaluators are also very good umpires and they umpire every night. So how would you rank these officials if there is nobody that can go around being impartial to view and evaluate the ~240 officials (I think this year that was close to the number in my state) that have applied for tournament assignments.

Well, for HS we have a rating committee of three. The umpires are expected to rate their partners and submit the forms to the committee. The committee also goes out to watch what games they can including the games they may work.

Toward the end of the season, each member reads all the submitted evaluations and independently rates those eligible for the HS state tournament. It is almost uncanny how close the three lists are. The problem is we submit our selections to the HS committee who then takes separate coaches' ratings and determines which umpires will work what tournament games. We routinely have umpires omitted by the coaches simply because they called the game by the rules and that isn't right.

And it is not weighted for the number of games umpired, number of umpires rated by the coaches, winner or loser coach, or for the tendencis of the coaches.
Another association I know discarded the comment card from the losing coach.

It is true that the number of umpires rated are not considered. However, the number of games, the coach's knowledge and tendencies and result of the contest, if known, are taken into consideration by the umpire rating committee. The rating umpire's tendencies are also given weight.

We also tried to encourage the coaches to provide us with rating cards and had minimal response and many of those were just to whine about something they did not like.
I wouldn't discard them, but give them very little weight.

I think the best method we used was when the umpires rated themselves by ranking each of their fellow umpires. This worked because they were forced to assign every fellow umpire a ranking. There was no way to sandbag.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect method.

YUCK. I'd give zero weight to a rating system solely comprised of coaches opinions. One can see why this obviously bad umpire is highly rated.

Isn't that pretty much how high school sport works here? :)

Not SOLELY.

The end of season rankings came out Thursday. Said umpire ranked #8 overall this year.