I Wonder if he stayed in a Holiday Inn the night before?

I thought it's supposed to be a Holiday Inn Express.

If by this you are calling these commercials stupid due to the way umpires are portrayed, I disagree. In my view, these commercials present the umpires as professionals in appearance and basic mechanics, unlike the usual where they might have a backward hat, not much of a uniform at all, etc.

The gripes with this one seem to be due to videographic composition rather than ignorance or lack of respect for umpires.

No indicator or brush? Really? 4-stitch hat? C'mon!

But, yeah, the BU is out of position in the softball one, but that seem to be for composition purposes, as I said above. If he had been where he was supposed to be, the final shot would not have been as dramatic.

shows you how effective those commercials were......

No, I cited and was referring to Rich's statement about the commercial being successful.

Perfect example, at least in the midatlantic area are the Sonic's commercials. They are just outright stupid.

Then again, I do not make purchase decisions based on advertisements.

+1 -

Yeah, don't knock Sonic...:p

I'm still trying to figure out softball mechanics (Coach Dad is 0-3 on the summer so far), but in baseball there'd *always* be an umpire in A on this play in a 3-umpire crew. Once we add a third umpire, we split a double play responsibility between the two base umpires.

I know it hasn't always been this way, but this change about 10-20 years ago (and getting away from the "umpire ahead of the runners" mentality) was smart, IMO.

Alabama / Kentucky ended on a double play last night and the base umpire responsible for both halves did a fantastic job and nailed the call on the back half. That said, making her call both halves with 3 umpires in place just seems silly to me -- it forces someone else to get any late interference at second base.

Serious question -- why never a 4 umpire crew in fastpitch?

The commercial did not have a 3-umpire crew on the field, or if they did, I never saw an umpire @ 2B

Why do you think there is something wrong with the "umpire ahead of the runner" mentality? I'm a firm believer it is better for the umpire to be waiting on the play than the play waiting for the umpire. The "mentality" is the priority of the runner. The closer to the plate, the more important the call. Yes, we want to get them all correct, but the ramifications of an error in judgment would be, hopefully, less catastrophic @ 1st than @ 3rd.

Don't know. I can tell you with ASA it is purely a financial issue, sometimes to even have 3-umpire crew. Than again, I've worked 6-umpire games and there are still angles that do not get covered. :) Personally, I'm also a firm believer that the 3-umpire pre-pitch positioning with a runner on 1st only is lopsided and should be changed.

BTW, don't care about baseball, different field, different rules, different game. Softball keeps their umpires out of the possible plays while baseball occasionally puts their umpires right in the middle of it.

We did four-man for our high school playoffs a couple of years ago. It tended to crowd the field, just like it does in youth baseball (LL, etc.) So now we go with three-man.

As I continue to work both sports (with most of my emphasis now on softball because, quite frankly, the games take much less time to finish, I don't have to cover as much ground to get into position, the players don't bitch about calls, and trash-talk is virtually nonexistent), I admit that there are quite a few differences in philosophy when it comes to positioning. Some softball practices make sense and I wonder why they don't use them in baseball, and vice versa.

What gets me is when there are different mechanics in different softball organizations. NCAA will have base umpires stay out on clean base hits while ASA makes them button-hook in is just one example. I don't recall these drastic differences between organizations in baseball unless, of course, the field dimensions are different.

No - it was a success because you remembered the company. That's the objective of an ad.

Cliche: There's no such thing as bad publicity.

Because it looked better for the commercial. :rolleyes:

Rita

+2

You could save this topic with some specifics. :)

I remember Miller Lite from their commercials, too. But I don't buy their product.

BTW, think about who said "there is no such thing as bad publicity". It was the guy selling it and failing miserably who had to justify himself