Plate Conf WTH?

[MD Longhorn]

2nd game of 2. New partner I've never met with hokey mechanics but made decent calls in game 1. I'm dish and we have 45 minutes between games. We head to the umpire room, talk a minute, and he leaves at about 30 minutes before game time to go to the bathroom.

20 min before game time I'm wondering what happened to my partner, but I head to the field anyway after looking around a bit. I get to the field about 15 min before gametime ...

And there's my partner, with both coaches, at the plate. He'd already done the coin flip and was just wrapping up whatever speech he made as I make it to the plate - at which point he says, "Anything you want to add, partner?"

WTF!

[tcannizzo]

Wouldn't be a female from OKC?

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by tcannizzo

Wouldn't be a female from OKC?

No.

[BretMan]

Originally Posted by mbcrowder

New partner I've never met with hokey mechanics but made decent calls...

This seems to describe most of the partners I've been getting lately..execpt, for some of them, the "decent calls" part.

Funny looking strike signals with fists extended straight out in front of the body, sweeping hand motions to indicate the location of pitches, safe signals that look like an airplane about to take of or a bird flapping it's wings, never leaving the plate to cover third or trail a batter-runner, lining up on the third base foul line as their version of the "C" position...

And there are some with apparently no concept whatsoever of how a plate conference works. A couple of recent ones:

- I'm on the bases. So we head out to do the plate conference. I walk out and stand on the "flat side" of the plate, facing the backstop. Plate guy comes out and stands...right next to me. Only there are the usual groups of coaches, captains and hanger-ons crowded around each side of the plate and there isn't much room where I'm standing. The plate guy has to kind of squeeze in, shoulder-to-shoulder with me. I guess he wants to be the center of attention, so as he starts his "conference"- which was more like some kind of good ol' boy comedy routine- he gradually nudges me aside until he's standing in front of me and I'm behind him!

- Partner and I are standing together, right next to the opening to the field, waiting for warm-ups to finish (about five minutes before game time). I'm the plate guy this time. Warm-ups end and I say to partner, "Are you ready? Let's get the coaches together". He says, "Okay".

I walk onto the field and take my spot at the point of the plate. I look over my shoulder and my partner is running over to his car (parked close to the field) to fumble around with something in the trunk!

So I'm standing there alone, surrounded by coaches and captains. I figure he's coming right back, so I stall with a little small talk. I see my partner start to walk away from his car...and he heads right down to the first base fence/dugout area and starts chatting up fans along the fence!

I yell his name to get his attention and wave him over. He finally comes over to the plate and stands...directly behind me!

Next game, we are switching base and plate. I go to my car to change. I hurry back, only to see him behind the plate with a pitcher about ready to pitch! He just went ahead and had them flip a coin to see who was the home team and had them take the field. He didn't bother with taking line-ups or going over the ground rules.

[Little Jimmy]

I worked a couple of games way out of town this weekend and my partner was obviously the "local hero". He knew everything about everybody and wasn't shy about telling me about each and every player on the field . When I was plate guy at the pre game he felt the need to interrupt every few seconds, joking with the coaches and basicly stepping on everything I was saying. And when he was working the plate for a later game, he came to the pre game conference eating an snowcone, crunching through the whole thing. He was still working on it right before the first pitch was thrown.

Of course all of these things may have been a local tradition. When in Rome...

[BretMan]

That's the other one that drives me batty. You're the plate umpire trying to do things the way you're supposed to, but the base umpire has to interject himself over top of every other word, usually with arcane rules references or silly glad-handing comments to the coaches.

Here is my routine for the plate conference when I'm the base umpire...stand there and shut up!

The other one you get with some of these "local hero/legends in their own mind" types is the conference that starts off something like, "We don't want to hear any arguments today and this is your only warning...". Then it goes downhill from there...

But I must admit...I have never had a partner show up at the plate conference with a snowcone!

[NCASAUmp]

I'll second the comment about local hero umpires. It drives me nuts to have a partner who goes up to the players and coaches and chats 'em up like we're not even in uniform.

For cryin' out loud, could you possibly hold up an even bigger sign to the other team that says "you're not getting any calls today?" If you want friends, go on Facebook.

[pob14]

Originally Posted by BretMan

- I'm on the bases. So we head out to do the plate conference. I walk out and stand on the "flat side" of the plate, facing the backstop. Plate guy comes out and stands...right next to me.

I understand the rest of your post, BretMan, but is there some protocol on where everybody should stand during the plate conference?

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by pob14

I understand the rest of your post, BretMan, but is there some protocol on where everybody should stand during the plate conference?

Uh .... yeah.

PU at the point, BU at the base (or BU's at the base) of the plate - toward pitcher's circle) Home coach (hopefully just 1) in or near batters box on his side of the field. Ditto visitor on the other side.

[NCASAUmp]

Originally Posted by pob14

I understand the rest of your post, BretMan, but is there some protocol on where everybody should stand during the plate conference?

The ASA Umpire Manual does specify that the PU should stand behind home plate facing the pitcher's plate. The BU should stand on the opposite side of home plate with their back to the pitcher's plate.

If it's a 3-umpire system, the two BUs stand side-by-side in the same aforementioned location with the 1BU on the 1B side and the 3BU on the 3B side.

The PU always conducts the meeting, which is what (justifiably) chafed Mike's rear.

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by NCASAUmp

I'll second the comment about local hero umpires. It drives me nuts to have a partner who goes up to the players and coaches and chats 'em up like we're not even in uniform.

For cryin' out loud, could you possibly hold up an even bigger sign to the other team that says "you're not getting any calls today?" If you want friends, go on Facebook.

Have one of these in our local league. Worse, we ALL know everyone on both teams. Yet LH (local hero) has his little group of people he hates (likely vice versa). Worked a game with him where he spent every single half inning on one side chatting with several different people - and never said boo to anyone on the other team - even though he knew them all.

I could do nothing but stand and watch the fallout when he made his first close call against that team.

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by NCASAUmp

The PU always conducts the meeting, which is what (justifiably) chafed Mike's rear.

Not just him conducting it ... but him going out alone without telling me he was going, AND conducting it while I wasn't even present. The "anything you want to add" comment got under my skin. If I was less professional, the thought in my head would have been verbalized, "Yeah, chump - I wasn't here so I have no clue what you've said to this point."

[NCASAUmp]

Originally Posted by mbcrowder

Not just him conducting it ... but him going out alone without telling me he was going, AND conducting it while I wasn't even present. The "anything you want to add" comment got under my skin. If I was less professional, the thought in my head would have been verbalized, "Yeah, chump - I wasn't here so I have no clue what you've said to this point."

You could have told him, "yeah, thanks for getting everyone together for me," then proceed with your plate conference.

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by NCASAUmp

You could have told him, "yeah, thanks for getting everyone together for me," then proceed with your plate conference.

Several "creative" ways to handle it and get my point across flew through my mind over the next minute or so...

[Welpe]

I had a jr high basketball game this last season that my partner started 25 minutes early because the coaches wanted to him. Considering I try to arrive to jr high games about 20 minutes before, this was not so good.