A base running question....

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by AtlUmpSteve

EXACTLY!!

Listen up, people. If a coach comes running out waving a book and that shows you up, then you can/should eject the coach for showing you up. Not for bringing the rulebook.

If a coach respectfully requests time, quotes a rule, and offers to show it to you in the rulebook; well, it is your JOB to rule according to the rulebook. Swallow your pride, check it out (best suggestion, go into the dugout and look at the rule, so everyone doesn't see what you are doing); if you are wrong, fix it!! If the coach is looking at something that doesn't apply (WOW!! Does that ever happen??), explain the difference, and move on.

Our job is to get it right, as long as the coach does it without showing you up. If you know you are right, what does it hurt to look in the book and show it to the coach??

It depends on how it is used as a prop. I don't know how many times I've had people try to show me a rule and they aren't even in the right rule let alone the right section. And to be honest, we rarely have the time to stop and give a clinic.

Not all games are NCAA games and some of those coaches aren't much better then the parent-coach in a 10U game who is citing the call s/he saw the previous weekend on the MLB Game of the Week.

Much of the time, a coach wants to show you a rule and there is no option to him/her other than what they think they are reading. But as we all know, rules come with interpretations and not all of them are in the book. Sometimes going to the book helps, however, I have found that it rarely resolves the situation on the field.