We're seeing so many low and/or outside pitches off the plate this season it's crazy. How should players prepare to hit balls at their knees 9 inches off the plate? Understanding that with 2 strikes you need to be in big time protect mode -but being down 0-2 on 2 badly called strikes is a tough place to be.
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What age are you talking about? I personally love those umpires.
HS JV. Good for pitchers of course.
WashBarn posted:We're seeing so many low and/or outside pitches off the plate this season it's crazy. How should players prepare to hit balls at their knees 9 inches off the plate? Understanding that with 2 strikes you need to be in big time protect mode -but being down 0-2 on 2 badly called strikes is a tough place to be.
To be honest, I'm not sure I generally put much stock in an assessment such as this.
I know there are horrible umpires. I also know that very few people can see the zone inside and outside with any measure of accuracy. I know I've been accused of ringing batters up on pitches "a foot off the plate" when I can tell you with 100% confidence that they were on the black, at worst.
Keep in mind that on a properly-lined field, 9" is 3" into the other box. Most fields I see at the HS level put the lines too close to the plate, which means we're looking at maybe 6" into the box. Please forgive my incredulity.
Here is what I tell my players.....
If you don't like it, don't put yourself in that position by taking hittable pitches for strikes.
If truly consistently that far off the plate, at some point, coach would have to express concern directly to ump but problem is the coach has the worst angle to see just how far off it is being called so not much credibility. If it is somehow otherwise clear that the zone is stretched way too far, coach can submit a request for ump not to do his games with the reason why.
But this needs to be kept in perspective. JV baseball - zones are typically wide. You don't want to be that coach unless there is a clear and blatant issue. Spend a lot of time instructing on hitting oppo. Teach them to get closer to the plate with two strikes so that they can cover pitches just off the plate. Nothing at all wrong with the knees. It is a strike.
In my experience it is the travel ball tournaments where the zones seem a little wider -- perhaps they have to get the games in and need them to move along? -- and in HS they seem more legit.
Don't forget the receiver effect. If you have a really good catcher back there, he can steal some of those questionable balls and make them strikes.
What I have seen it the zone moves out as the batter gets closer to the plate. So "inside" pitches that are strikes are called balls because the batter turns out of the way. Then the ball way off the plate becomes a strike.
Matt13 posted:WashBarn posted:We're seeing so many low and/or outside pitches off the plate this season it's crazy. How should players prepare to hit balls at their knees 9 inches off the plate? Understanding that with 2 strikes you need to be in big time protect mode -but being down 0-2 on 2 badly called strikes is a tough place to be.
To be honest, I'm not sure I generally put much stock in an assessment such as this.
I know there are horrible umpires. I also know that very few people can see the zone inside and outside with any measure of accuracy. I know I've been accused of ringing batters up on pitches "a foot off the plate" when I can tell you with 100% confidence that they were on the black, at worst.
Keep in mind that on a properly-lined field, 9" is 3" into the other box. Most fields I see at the HS level put the lines too close to the plate, which means we're looking at maybe 6" into the box. Please forgive my incredulity.
I have seen this too. When they are too close anything between the lines is in fact a strike. Actually makes it easier to see.
If you watched the C.B. Buckner debacle the other night (Nats v. Braves), and then saw him botch another call in the field last night, then you understand that even the highly paid MLB umps are fallible. In fact, some of them are just not that good at all.
Every level of baseball you step down from MLB, things get worse. MiLB, college, high school varsity, then HS JV.
So think of your son's situation like this: The guys making the calls are 4 levels down from guys who screw up with regularity and yet are the best that money can buy apparently. Adding to that, in a typical HS game there are only 2 guys out there, so sometimes they just don't see things that well because you can't be at every angle at once.
What that means is, umpire screwups are a part of the game, and there's nothing you can do about that.
Now, if I see an ump copping an attitude, indicating bias for/against a team or any particular player or coach, etc., I think someone should get that guy off the field for future games. Beyond that, you just have to have faith that it all evens out in the end.
Admittedly, it never seems that way!
P.S.
My pet peeve is the HPU who announces at the pregame meeting at the plate what "my strike zone" looks like. No one has a personal strike zone. The powers that be met and developed this thing called a rule book, and it specifies what the strike zone is. The HPU's job is to apply the rules as written, and he is not empowered to substitute his judgment for the rule book.
But I've learned to bite my tongue when someone says that crud.
One time I did pull the rule book out of my back pocket and I said, "I see. Is there anything else in here that we won't be using today?"
That game did not go well. 
Matt13 posted:WashBarn posted:We're seeing so many low and/or outside pitches off the plate this season it's crazy. How should players prepare to hit balls at their knees 9 inches off the plate? Understanding that with 2 strikes you need to be in big time protect mode -but being down 0-2 on 2 badly called strikes is a tough place to be.
To be honest, I'm not sure I generally put much stock in an assessment such as this.
I know there are horrible umpires. I also know that very few people can see the zone inside and outside with any measure of accuracy. I know I've been accused of ringing batters up on pitches "a foot off the plate" when I can tell you with 100% confidence that they were on the black, at worst.
Keep in mind that on a properly-lined field, 9" is 3" into the other box. Most fields I see at the HS level put the lines too close to the plate, which means we're looking at maybe 6" into the box. Please forgive my incredulity.
Matt13 - Can you give me a refresher on the "plate" dimensions anddescribe what the black portion is designed to do? Also, when you talk about 6" off the plate, are we talking about the "white"?
Love nothing more than some kid toeing the line, leaning in and getting rung up on a low/inside strike. Correction - do love it even more when they back out like they were about to get pegged while getting rung up.
This is not an excuse for poor umpiring..........but understand that in HS baseball, you often don't get the best umpire.........just the most available umpire.......
With 3-4:30 or so start times, the umpires who are available are often retirees......and often sub varsity gets lesser quality umpires........and the chronic shortage of umpires does nothing to lessen the problem.
I often have far better umpires working evening 13-14 yr old games because of the starting times....
Plus we all acknowledge that in all levels there are people who just aren't suited to be in Umpiring
2017LHPscrewball posted:Matt13 posted:WashBarn posted:We're seeing so many low and/or outside pitches off the plate this season it's crazy. How should players prepare to hit balls at their knees 9 inches off the plate? Understanding that with 2 strikes you need to be in big time protect mode -but being down 0-2 on 2 badly called strikes is a tough place to be.
To be honest, I'm not sure I generally put much stock in an assessment such as this.
I know there are horrible umpires. I also know that very few people can see the zone inside and outside with any measure of accuracy. I know I've been accused of ringing batters up on pitches "a foot off the plate" when I can tell you with 100% confidence that they were on the black, at worst.
Keep in mind that on a properly-lined field, 9" is 3" into the other box. Most fields I see at the HS level put the lines too close to the plate, which means we're looking at maybe 6" into the box. Please forgive my incredulity.
Matt13 - Can you give me a refresher on the "plate" dimensions anddescribe what the black portion is designed to do? Also, when you talk about 6" off the plate, are we talking about the "white"?
Love nothing more than some kid toeing the line, leaning in and getting rung up on a low/inside strike. Correction - do love it even more when they back out like they were about to get pegged while getting rung up.
The plate is 17" wide, not including the black (which is technically not considered part of the plate.) The outside of the batter's boxes should be 6" from the white.
For HS: Let's inject some reality here, though. If only called the white in HS, we would never get out of there. Thus, I'll give a tiny bit more inside, and a bit more outside--never more than a ball, though, at the absolute max (when I'm in a game where i have to buy strikes.) Thus, if the outside pitch touches the line on a proper field, it's never a strike to me. That's the expectation in my neck of the woods, and I rarely have any complaints and zero negative evaluations (which I would hope, given I'm in the state tournament every year except my mandatory off year and I evaluate.)
For college: I would say that the liberal outside strike has been more of an issue in college than in HS. Pitchers are better, catchers are better, and batters are better at reaching that pitch. I don't give that pitch more than a ball off the plate, but there are plenty who do (and we have been told repeatedly to reign it in a bit.) This was one of the things I was thinking about when I started my thread on the college zone and people's perceptions of it.
Generally speaking, some umpires suck, but very few suck as bad as fans think they do (exceptions include the "my zone" guys Midlo mentioned).
It is hard to call strikes accurately and consistently. Good umpires approach the job with awareness of one's perceptual limits, concentration and humility.
The catcher and the plate umpire have the best view of the three dimensions of the zone abd the whole flight path of the pitch.
Other observers--coaches, fans, base umpires--sometimes have more accurate views of one dimension than the plate umpire (e.g., the base coach faced by the batter can know that a pitch is above or below the zone, a fan directly behind the outside corner can sometimes know a pitch stayed outside the whole length of its path.
However, these observers can never know for sure that a pitch was a strike because the ones who can judge up-down can't judge in-out, and the ones who can judge in-out can't see when the up-down was right.
Most observers show little awareness of the depth of the zone.
Umpires look to see any part of the ball in any part of the zone.
Fans simply cannot see the brilliant top-of-ball/bottom-of-zone/front-of-zone and cb-nicks-outside-corner/bottom-of-zone pitches that look horrible to them.
The cues most fans and coaches use provide irrelevant information about where the ball was after it passed the zone.
Despite the perceptual limitations of the umpire's vantage point alluded to by Matt, there is no substitute for tracking the whole flight of the ball from release point to mitt with a stationary head. People who can't do that from where they stand should be circumspect about denouncing those who can.
Sometimes you can know we're wrong, but most of the time you can't.
And that would be true even if your perception weren't distorted by your desire to see the ball either in or out of the zone.
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.
hshuler posted:IMO, the best umps take a second or two to let their brains sort it out versus anticipating a call.
Bad timing (too quick) is the number one issue I see when I evaluate or on the field and it's a problem for everyone at times.
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.
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.
piaa_ump posted:This is not an excuse for poor umpiring..........but understand that in HS baseball, you often don't get the best umpire.........just the most available umpire.......
With 3-4:30 or so start times, the umpires who are available are often retirees......and often sub varsity gets lesser quality umpires........and the chronic shortage of umpires does nothing to lessen the problem.
I often have far better umpires working evening 13-14 yr old games because of the starting times....
Plus we all acknowledge that in all levels there are people who just aren't suited to be in Umpiring
All true. Week day lower level games, you get what you get. Sometimes they can even see. 
New pitch rules, new pitchers that can't find the strike zone. Players need to act like they're Roberto Clemente. Or 2016 Puig. You can't hit those pitches in the pros but you should be able to in HS, especially if you step into the box with a 33 or 34" bat. At least 2 baseballs on any count, 3 on two strikes, 4 baseballs on 3-2.
hsbaseball101 posted:New pitch rules, new pitchers that can't find the strike zone. Players need to act like they're Roberto Clemente. Or 2016 Puig. You can't hit those pitches in the pros but you should be able to in HS, especially if you step into the box with a 33 or 34" bat. At least 2 baseballs on any count, 3 on two strikes, 4 baseballs on 3-2.
I've had two varsity games this year on the dish...so this is really an ineffective sample size, but I did notice something in this first year of pitch counts (before, it was innings pitched in a week.)
Every pitcher I've seen has become more reliant on FBs and offspeed in the zone to get ahead early, rather than using breaking balls to get the batter to chase or to set up for later in the count. With that, there has been more contact and--surprisingly--better defense. My two games were 3-1 and 3-2, with a lot of defensive help from all four teams.
The ball touching is a legal strike. The second ball, as the dad of a pitcher, I hope is called a strike but legally out of the zone and what I would consider two balls off the plate. If balls over the chalk (3 balls out) are getting called strikes it's going to be a tough day for the batters.
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.
real green posted:
The ball touching is a legal strike. The second ball, as the dad of a pitcher, I hope is called a strike but legally out of the zone and what I would consider two balls off the plate. If balls over the chalk (3 balls out) are getting called strikes it's going to be a tough day for the batters.
And as matt indicated, many time the box is only "one ball" off the plate. I have actually measured some artificial fields, with permanent boxes, where such is the case.
Years ago after getting my first DLSR I joined a photograph forum for some pointers. Of course people posted pics. One was of a catcher and umpire the fraction of a second before the ball hit the catchers mitt. It was a great pic and I regret losing track of it.
Oh yeah, both the catcher and ump had their eyes closed, LOL.
If you think you can do better, you can always try - I betcha that's "a" reason some guys get started umpiring. If you don't want to take the punishment, then stop complaining. It's not an enjoyable experience getting hit with a FB that the catcher doesn't move to catch or a foul that either gets you on the arm or off the plate and up into your nether regions. Consistency is something you strive for as an umpire, but when the pitcher gets lucky to find the zone 1 out of 6 pitches thrown or the catcher is "all over the place" - it makes it much harder to be consistent. Late in the game the other day I heard a dad yell "c'mon blue you haven't called that one all day" - to which I thought - damn, that's the first pitcher all day to have thrown a beautiful 11-4 curveball! My favorite though is when some leather-lung complains about the zone when their child has already swung at multiple pitches at "eye level". If your child has been "taught" to look for a ball in a specific zone (e.g. about where one would place a ball on "T"), then good luck finding that pitch. Pitchers are taught to not pitch there for obvious reasons... A good hitter can hit the ball pitched at any speed anywhere in or near the strike zone to any field. As they say - that's what separates the men from the boys. Always remember to watch the zone for both teams you cannot be both happy and mad that the pitch that's the proverbial 9" off the plate is being called a strike.
WashBarn posted:We're seeing so many low and/or outside pitches off the plate this season it's crazy. How should players prepare to hit balls at their knees 9 inches off the plate? Understanding that with 2 strikes you need to be in big time protect mode -but being down 0-2 on 2 badly called strikes is a tough place to be.
I will take your game over the one I saw this year.
JV game, both sides had fairly good command of the strike zone. There were a lot of painted corners and very VERY pretty pitches....all BALLS! Up the middle, waist height, was the only strike being called. Both sides tried 3 different pitchers, from super fast to super slow, heck we threw in a submarine pitcher...nothing worked. Between both sides the ump rung up 25 walks that game....game was almost 3 hours long!
Good umpiring in HS games is not hard to find. Good CONSISTENT umpiring is, alas, often hard to find. I tip my hat to those who work hard to make baseball games possible in the first place.
I will add that my son, a 2017 catcher who can get very frustrated when he gets a late-game called strike that he, having been catching all along and having both the best view of the pitches and "working knowledge" of the umpire's strike zone, was not a strike until then. So being a catcher can be a double-edged sword.
Some general observations about HS umpiring (1) the SZ for "pretty" curveballs often expands as the game goes on, (2) low and away strikes seem to be the most difficult to call consistently, and (3) "situational" SZ's can still appear for teams with clearly struggling pitchers and teams with many kids who are obviously looking for the walk.
Batty67 posted:(2) low and away strikes seem to be the most difficult to call consistently.
Agree.
Parallax error works against the umpire on both the up-down and in-out planes for the low outside pitch.
An umpire who consciously decides to give a little extra on the outside edge can end up giving an embarrassing amount, even more so at the bottom of the outside edge.
My approach is to call the defined zone as I see it without compensating for the known error. It seems to help me with consistency while keeping my zone within expected parameters.
I halfway suspect that the common practice of giving a little on the outside is a natural result of trying to call it by the book.
2017LHPscrewball posted: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.
Keep in mind that I'm referring to the outside limits. Inside is much tighter...If a batter gets hit by something off the plate, it's not a strike.
Batty67 posted:Some general observations about HS umpiring (1) the SZ for "pretty" curveballs often expands as the game goes on, (2) low and away strikes seem to be the most difficult to call consistently, and (3) "situational" SZ's can still appear for teams with clearly struggling pitchers and teams with many kids who are obviously looking for the walk.
Good points here. RE #3 - I think it's been posted here before that a while back some PHD statistician types published a paper making a good case that pro umps' zones change depending on the count. IE, the zone widens at 3-0 and narrows at 0-2. RE #2 - anyone who has gotten behind the dish to call even a Little League game knows that the low outside corner is really very difficult to call accurately. And knowing that, as a HS baseball hitter's parent, I can live with it. But working in the slot, the inside part and top of the zone are much more easy to see, so when an ump is wide on the inside or sees strikes at the armpits he is going to hear chirping. Sorry, Blue! RE #1 - some umps are like some hitters, they'll give up on a curveball. But after seeing a few they pick it up better.
real green posted:
The ball touching is a legal strike. The second ball, as the dad of a pitcher, I hope is called a strike but legally out of the zone and what I would consider two balls off the plate. If balls over the chalk (3 balls out) are getting called strikes it's going to be a tough day for the batters.
This is amazing. This just became part of my teaching repertoire when we discuss hitting plans.
Swing the bat
I've never seen HS lines drawn like that. The batters box usually starts one ball width away from the edge of the plate. Just think if you're an umpire, you get paid per game, but you have the power to maximize your per hour wage. You could typically either be making $37.50/hr or $25/hr. If you were to call a perfect game, you'd probably make $18.75/hr. So the bottom line is how much money do you want to make, right? Every ump has the ability to call a perfect game. In every scrimmage we've played where coaches are the umps, we've called great games with absolutely zero complaints from either side. If a coach can call a proper strike, obviously a "pro" umpire should be able to. That said, don't ever leave it in the judges' hands. Swing the damn bat
hsbaseball101 postedThat said, don't ever leave it in the judges' hands. Swing the damn bat
I can't express enough how much I relate to the OP. If a pitch is so far outside that the batter can't hit it while staying in the batters box it should not be called a strike. Yet I see it all the time. What's worse is when you have college, and now pro scouts there to see your kid and the ump just screws him.
Now as to what I quoted. My son is off to college next year. Only time will tell but he just might have a future in baseball. The last thing I need is for him to get into the habit of swinging at bad pitches just because some umpire might call it a strike.
Edit to say, I love those ump's when the kid pitches.
Midlo Dad posted:If you watched the C.B. Buckner debacle the other night (Nats v. Braves), and then saw him botch another call in the field last night, then you understand that even the highly paid MLB umps are fallible. In fact, some of them are just not that good at all.
Every level of baseball you step down from MLB, things get worse. MiLB, college, high school varsity, then HS JV.
So think of your son's situation like this: The guys making the calls are 4 levels down from guys who screw up with regularity and yet are the best that money can buy apparently. Adding to that, in a typical HS game there are only 2 guys out there, so sometimes they just don't see things that well because you can't be at every angle at once.
What that means is, umpire screwups are a part of the game, and there's nothing you can do about that.
Now, if I see an ump copping an attitude, indicating bias for/against a team or any particular player or coach, etc., I think someone should get that guy off the field for future games. Beyond that, you just have to have faith that it all evens out in the end.
Admittedly, it never seems that way!
P.S.
My pet peeve is the HPU who announces at the pregame meeting at the plate what "my strike zone" looks like. No one has a personal strike zone. The powers that be met and developed this thing called a rule book, and it specifies what the strike zone is. The HPU's job is to apply the rules as written, and he is not empowered to substitute his judgment for the rule book.
But I've learned to bite my tongue when someone says that crud.
All mlb umpires are amazingly good. They have bad days too but mlb games happen at an incredible pace and those things are hard to see. The bucknor thing was bad but every call by mlb umpires is reviewed and if it happens too often they will lose their jobs. If bucknor had such nights regularly he would lose his job soon.
Amateur umpires are worse but it is still not easy to see behind the plate. Any hs or younger parents or coaches that complains about bad hs umpires should ask themselves if their player makes less mistakes. An 80+ mph pitch is not easy to judge for both umps and hitters. Yes umps will miss some but kids will also chase pitches that are a foot outside so that shows how hard it is. You can't actually track the ball all the way to the glove but you lose it a few feet in front due to the way the eye works.
hsbaseball101 posted:In every scrimmage we've played where coaches are the umps, we've called great games with absolutely zero complaints from either side. If a coach can call a proper strike, obviously a "pro" umpire should be able to. That said, don't ever leave it in the judges' hands. Swing the damn bat
Let's see .... scrimmage... coach is umpire... player complains... player loses play time because coach doesn't like being shown up or doesn't want the player doing that in a game.... it's a scrimmage... pitchers aren't trying to paint corners... generally it's throw a 4 seamer mostly - easiest pitch to call... pitchers aren't at pitch 100 in the 3rd inning... catchers aren't flailing all over the place trying to pull a ball 9" off the plate back on... catchers aren't set up in the other batters box receiving a pitch and not moving their glove... Of course if a coach likes the umpire pay scale per hour more so than their own and feels they could do a better job, then maybe it's time for a job change! ;-) I think it's absurd to "hint" that an umpire is only there for the money, but if that's your perception then that's your reality.
hsbaseball101 posted:
I've never seen HS lines drawn like that. The batters box usually starts one ball width away from the edge of the plate. …
I will say that not all teams draw the lines correctly, but in 20 years of watching HS baseball, I don’t remember ever seeing a batter’s box only 3” away from the plate, and I usually look.
