Tenn v. Bama

[Skahtboi]

Originally Posted by Andy

I am an advocate of chasing all fly balls in three umpire in ASA and HS play where the umpires are not accustomed to working in a three umpire system on a regular basis.

For umpires at the NCAA level who work 30-40 games a year in the 3 umpire system, only chasing trouble balls makes sense due to the fact that they have more experience in reading the hit and making a quicker decision to chase or not.

Yes, it is better to have three umpires covering 4 bases, but umpires frozen because of hesitation on a fly ball don't do any good either. Since most umpires are more instinctual in the two umpire system, chasing every fly ball is a better option. JMHO....

You just saved me a heap o' typing. I was thinking these same thoughts as I read along.

[Steve M]

Many of the Fed umpires around here also do baseball.
In that game, from A, they chase. We've not gotten into chasing from other starting positions. I've done so much prodding at our high school meetings over the past several years that some are now starting to chase from A in softball. I've harped on using the same chase criteria:
a ball to the wall
a ball on the line
a fielder charging in
a fielder charging out
multiple fielders coming together

As we move into 4-man games (no 3-man) high school games here, umpires are more prepared to chase - recognizing trouble balls.