Interference Question

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by rwest

You should consider newbies as new born babes. They have to learn to crawl before they can walk. A little more spoon feeding at the beginning is appropriate. To your questions regarding a mentor, the answer is yes to all of them. A good mentor will adjust his approach as the umpire grows. At first, he should answer questions directly. Then as his understanding is strengthened, he should probably start asking questions that will get the umpire to think. Then he could direct the umpire to the appropriate rule.

My mentor answered my questions directly instead of telling me where in the book to look for the answers. My first year I asked a lot of questions. No so much my 2nd year and I didn't ask any my 3rd year. Learning to umpire is a process. I think we can show a little more patience to the newbies and give them more of a direct answer and explain the reasoning instead of just say read rule x.y.z. Then as they grow in understanding, we change our approach. Just like parenting! We answer questions directly when they are young and then as the get older we ask questions to stimulate their thinking.

As to your Chinese fish proverb! I'm assuming you mean "give a man a fish feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime". Well, how are you going to teach him? Tell him to "Go read a book"? How about showing him and teaching him what bait to use for the fish he is after. What's the best time to fish and why. How to cast.

He is not a baby and I'm not going to treat him or anyone else like they are a baby. If that is what they want, I would suggest a nursery.

He was given the answers and references.

Whether you want to admit it or not, in today's world, NO ONE thinks it is important to actually learn this stuff. It is unbelieveable how many people take the instruction as if it were a suggestion, not direction.

Like it or not, if you want someone to excel, they have to want and work to learn, force feeding doesn't help. This is how you end up with "veteran" umpires ruling or being talked into ruling the hands as part of the bat; an IF is a dead ball; its one base from the infield, two from the outfield, etc. This often happens simply because that umpire never had to make such a decision and was never "given" the exact ruling.

Don't like chinese proverbs? How about Algernon Sydney?