Three umpire mechanics question

[Tru_in_Blu]

Originally Posted by Andy

This was in our recent SP National - winner's bracket final game.

This is exactly what happened. U1 was our top umpire in the tournament, U3 was in her first national tournament with not a whole lot of experience in the 3 umpire system. My feedback to them was that U3 should have taken the whole rundown, she never moved too far away from third and I heard no communication between U1 and U3.

While perhaps not precedent-setting, is it unusual to have someone with not much 3-umpire system experience working that game?

And while I don't have much 3-umpire system experience myself, I'd side with those that say U3 stays near 3B and U1 would have the call @ 2B. I agree that most run downs don't last very long, but in this case there was an umpire at both ends of the play.

Oh, and I'll also say that I thought U3 was the position in 3-ump that takes the most getting used to. When I first did games there, I felt like a fish out of water. I just never had that view of the field before - it was a bit different.