Nitrogen pellet, but I don't believe you get real Guiness in the US.

Not the SummerFest. It is a clean, crisp lager with no hop bite at all. Notice I left off all of the American Pales and IPA's from being mentioned, as I didn't want to scare a novice off. I know that hoppy beers tend to scare away the uninitiated.



While not a big wheat beer fan myself, I would not go as far as your comment here. There are some quite palatable wheat beers out there. Case in point, Erdinger's Dunkelweiss.



Again, this has less to do with my tastes and travels, than with trying to get someone who thinks Landshark and Blue Moon are what constitutes "real" beer to try some other offerings. I wasn't meaning to compare. I was trying to introduce. If I were to make a list of beers that I were to consider "great" and "good", then we would be here for quite a while. In defense of Samuel Smith, though, they have some good recipes for good beer (I am partial to the Oatmeal Stout and the Taddy Porter), and of course have a much more storied legacy than Smuttynose. (Hopefully you didn't read "Sam Adams" where I said "Sam Smith.")



You don't have to. Prima Pils is, IMO, probably the US's best pilsner. Some folks don't like a pils. That is up to them. Also, Victory's Hop Devil is a very good example of the American Style Pale Ale, with its many layers of complexity for beers that many just view as "hop monsters." The rest of Victory's brews don't really wow me, but I will defend those two as very respectable beers.

If you are talking about what you get in the Irish pubs, then you are correct. Completely different animal altogether.

1) Partners who yap too much at the plate conference ...

2) Partners who run around nit picking, BELIEVING they are some how puritan in enforcing rules when all they are really doing is ruining the game for everyone involved except themselves. An example of this behavior are the uniform inspectors, those who call time out to run to right field over an ear ring or run around attending some other nonessential task, those who toss bats that should never be tossed, but do so for the fun of it, those who announce outs and occupied bases to pitching changes, and those who call an IP then immediately run to the circle to conduct a coaching clinic on pitching mechanics, some times even including footwork demonstrations.

Let the girls play ball - follow that number 1 rule and everything else falls into place in most cases.

3) beer drinking threadjackers.

Well soon as I make a trip to Ireland I will be sure to try a real pint of Guinness. ;)

I'll keep an eye out for some Sierra Nevada SummerFest.

Gee, now I want a beer. :rolleyes:

I don't give a rat. It tastes good to me. Even in really cold glasses.

You don't need to go to Ireland. Canada allows direct import.

Agree, but what do you do with the coach in the 3B dugout who is screaming about the "jewelry" violation by the RF? :confused:

Last time I heard of a coach complaining about another team's player wearing jewelry, the umpire decided to take a break, walk to his car for a drink and a smoke, take an obligatory scan of the rule book, returned to the field and tossed the coach! :eek:

Oh, did I happen to mention he also kept the clock running? :D

Well.. I dont have many pet peeves involving coaches as they fall under a slightly different category: "triggers".

Well put.

You must be watching some NSA tournaments around here. I admit that I enjoy working them, but these are some of the exact same things that kinda tick me off while I'm working them. I do most of them, following the "when in Rome" concept, but I drop them as soon as I'm working something else.

1) NSA plate conferences require attendance by the coaches and the entire teams, since we are to check for uniform compliance by both teams. If either team is not in compliance, then the opposing team gets their choice of home or visitor, rather than doing a double coin flip. Since they are there, we are to remind them that shirts are to be tucked in all the way around, yada yada yada.

2) Yeah, uniform inspections are done, though this is one that I conveniently forget to check during the game. On a few occasions I have had a BU who has called time and run up to remind a batter that her shirt needs to be tucked, since I was negligent in doing so. We don't have to worry about jewelry any more, since NSA discourages wearing it, but does not prohibit it. The passing along of game information to a new pitcher in mid inning I do, but it feels stupid while I'm doing it. Even most of the high school umpires around here do it also, but I don't do it in a high school game. Finally, yes when we call an IP, we are supposed to call a coach from the violating team out to the circle so we can explain what the violation was. I keep mine brief, but a lot of my partners have done the whole pitching clinic thing. This is another one that some of the high school umpires do, but again I don't do this outside of NSA.

3) I pretty much stopped drinking around 12 years ago...probably haven't had 24 beers since then, so yeah I can't keep up with the beer conversations.

Wow! NSA actually requires the teams to line up for inspection? I can't imagine going through that rigmarole! I hope that whole Mickey Mouse process doesn't migrate my way...

Something in another thread reminded me of another pet peeve. I'm PU, and BU decides to call for "Balls in!" (before the minute OR number of pitches is up). Worse, the BU that adds, "Comin' down!"

Another - PU that says, after an outside pitch, "Bring em in, pitcher" or after a high one, "Bring em down, pitcher". How the hello do you know she didn't throw it high or outside on purpose?

I wouldn't know why any umpire would says anything.

75% of the time or so, pitcher / catcher know when their time is up, or their pitches are up. That 25% that's left, I generally say only where catcher can here me ... "Bring em in, catch", and they do the rest.