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Reply to "HS Umpiring"

Matt13 posted:
real green posted:
hshuler posted:

From what I've seen this year, high school umpiring is definitely better than travel ball umpiring...but there's good and bad in both.

Pre-game meeting a couple of years ago:

Ump - "Coaches, I'm giving two baseball off the plates?

Me - "Why?

Ump - "Because I want the kids to swing."

Me - "This is travel ball and I can promise you that they're swinging."

Ump - "I'm giving two baseballs off the plate, Coach!"

Me - "Why do we have a plate again?"

Needless to say two baseballs became four baseballs and both coaches essentially just set catchers up off the plate to see how much he'd give. It wasn't fair to either team because the pitches were unhittable.

My biggest peeve with high school umpiring is that some make the calls on the bases too fast and don't let their brain process what just happened. IMO, the best umps take a second or two to let their brains sort it out versus anticipating a call. 

2 baseballs is touching is touching the Edge of the batter's box. A true strike is one ball off the plate. Matt just stated above that his limit is touching the box i.e. two balls off the plate.

Of course, this all comes down to what we're defining. When I describe it, I'm talking about the distance between the ball and the plate--thus, one ball between the edge of the plate and the ball itself, which would put the outside of the ball at just under six inches, but the inside at just under three inches.

I would hope "one ball out" is your max limit.  I suspect you are a good, if not great umpire (and I am one to give umpires some leeway except in t-ball), but a pitch - let's assume a pretty straight fastball for argument - that is three inches off the white does not come close to looking like a strike, even with my old eyes.  My 2017 pitches in that area a whole lot and when he is 3 inches out and doesn't get a strike call, I have zero problem.  If the teams cannot throw well, then I could see half that.  Sort of reminds me of the balk discussion where you have to call an illegal pitch early on to avoid calling it a balk when a runner happens to be on and confusing everyone.  If you call it one full ball off, what happens if the kid get hit by the pitch off the plate but just out of the box?

Once the pitcher puts a little movement on the pitch I tend to defer to the umpire as long as he is consistent.

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