My First Ever Official Protest

[MD Longhorn]

I've run across the occasional coach cum umpire director who did not umpire beforehand... ALWAYS a problem. And worse, most of them learned BASEBALL rules and are not aware that softball rules are very much different (or if they are, they consider softball rules an offshoot of baseball rules and remember 4 or 5 "exceptions" that are different, rather than learning the rules of the sport in total).

Why in the world have they not put an UMPIRE in this role?

I know it's not a perfect world ... but obviously they HAVE umpires - I would suspect that a 3 year umpire is more versed in the rules and their nuances than a former coach who spends his extra time supervising umpires... even if he did attend a clinic - learning comes when the rubber meets the road.