You go out in a 2-umpire game when you want to screw WITH your partner:D

You'll be buying the first three rounds if you do that to me with multiple runners! :p :D

no runners on and something up down the line

or

if I want to screw with my partner :D.

I like the "extra set of eyes" approach. I had a young partner on a DIII game a few years ago. With no outs and R1 on 1B, he chased a ball to right-center. F9 dove and missed. F8 chased the ball down near the fence. When the throw from the outfield hit F3's glove (in position as the cutoff near the circle) I had R1 15' from home and BR 20' from 3B. Fortunately for me, the throw went to 3B and BR was out by 5 feet.

And that's exactly the kind of play where not chasing, but watching the fly can help.
Although, like Mike said, sometimes messing with your partner is fun:cool:

The other issue to consider is the use of temporary fences. Around here, we play most of our games on fields with 300' permanent fences and put up the temporary fences at 200'. I much prefer an umpire out near the fence on a ball that is hit near the fence with the possibilty of a catch and carry, a ball going off the fielders glove over the fence, or to judge whether or not the batted ball bounced in front of or over the fence.

I agree with those that have stated that the pregame discussion of this mechanic is vital.

On batted balls to the outfield, I have been taught to buttonhook into the infield. The current ASA manual says that the base umpire is required to buttonhook in. I can see the benifit of going out, but have not done it.

It also says "There are times a base umpire needs to go to the outfield for fly ball coverage". Unfortunately, they don't have a checklist for the times you need to go out. That is left up to the individual umpire for the most part. And that is kind of the point of this thread.

What was that song Bob Seger sang?.....Oh yeah, Turn The Page ;)

So you're saying don't just stand there like a rock? :D

There you go, singing songs again...... :D

I have not been taught to go out on the fly ball, is this done more so in slow pitch?

I wouldn't know about slow pitch, but there are some on board here who do. Going out, or chasing, or whatever you want to call it is primarily a fast pitch mechanic.

I don't think so. It is a mechanic used in both games and probably more necessary in SP than FP due to the increase acreage which needs to be covered and the increased number of "athletic" showboating attempts.:rolleyes: