Note to All

Pilsner,
Welcome to the site!. It is always good to see new umpires come on and post. I encourage you to do so.

I appreciate your kind words, although I do not consider myself to be a "Rules Guru". I am just a working umpire who relates to this forum based on my experience. However, I will admit to having an extensive rules reference library. I am my College/HS Chapter rules interpreter....if you need a source, I probably have it....

My only advice is to consider the HSBBW like drive time radio..there are many regulars who are well learned, but many posters are just tuning in for the first time. We will be asked many of the same questions, and many will be of the very fundamental variety. If you have visited many internet umpiring sites, you will know that this type of atmosphere is not welcome there.

I have tried to keep a partnership relationship between umpires and posters, if a topic is too hot, I usually avoid posting.....

Again welcome......if there is anything I can do to help you, please feel free to ask.....oh yes, and by the way.......keep that sense of humor nearby.......it will come in handy...

Pilsner

I too welcome you to the site-- I am not an umpires favorite fan but I appreciate what they do and I know what I expect from them on the field

Glad to have you with us and by the way, great name for a dog

Thanks to you also.

"I only know what I know. Of all other things I am ignorant...but trying hard not to be"
Patrick O'Leary (obscure Irish philosopher)

Well put Pilsner. I'm jjk, it's for the way I used to pitch, Jam em, Junk em, then K em, okay not really, just my name.. I too appreciate this forum, I'm kinda new to this internet stuff, amazing what you find, but this is a very interesting forum, some great thoughts and interpretations are passed along. I played through some college (pitcher), I began umpiring for our local leagues during the summers at 17 yrs of age, and have always loved it, am I sick or something? I began coaching youth leagues in 1984 (Big League 16-18 yr olds, LL affiliation) of course one of the expectations for all coachs is to get out and umpire from time to time as all LL umpires are volunteers. From 1994-1999, I was a coach, board member (UIC for 4 years and Pres. for the last two) of our local Babe Ruth League 13-15 and 16-18 divisions. The first two years of UIC duties, my job/s were to 1. teach coaches baseball rules 2. to recruit and train an umpire staff, my first year I had a pool of 40 volunteers, which I met with every Sunday morning to discuss, scenarios, rule applications etc. they had encountered the previous week. At any rate my goal was to save the league some $$'s, have adequate umpires and build the leagues coffers in hopes the league would be solvent enough to pay for umpires the rest of my years there, it worked, whew! At any rate since 99, I've done mostly volunteer work for the local LL's, until 2001 when I was urged to join our local association, well the rest is history, I'm hooked. Unfortunatley my day job doesn't allow me time to work the HS's so I'm limited to summer ball, I do various select, Legion and just this summer a new collegiate level league in our area, as you can tell by some of my previous posts, I'm just not familiar enough with the school ball rule's and all the leagues I work play OBR, but most if not all coaches are used to HS and or various collegiate level rules, which as you can see makes for some interesting topics of discussion. PIAA I am very interested in your "reference Library" at least some good sources to attain such. I live with my nose in the OBR and "The Rules of Professional Baseball" by Jaksa and Roder, well when it's not in the mask that is.
I see you mention "other web sites", I'd be interested in finding those as well. I don't even remember how I found this site, but I do know how to "add it to my favorites. Thank again. jjk

Here are four boards that I frequent along with some comments about each:

http://www.umpire.org/modules.php?name=Forums

http://eteamz.active.com/baseball/boards/

http://www.officialforum.com/

http://www.gmcgriff.com/discus/messages/2/2.html

umpire.org is the site of ABUA. It used to be one of the best on the net but now it has a mercurial moderator who takes to deleting threads at random.

eteamz.com is a quality operation primarily devoted to 60 foot umpiring. It has lots of coaches participating and lots of services for leagues and teams.

officiating.com has a free site and a paid site. I posted the link for the free forum. It has a mecurial editor and moderators who are afraid of their own shadows. For a while it replaced umpire.org as the best forum on the net but it's quality, while still superior has declined due to its management and moderators.

mcgriffs.com is the wild west of forums. I believe it is the oldest officials forum on the net. There is no registration and anyone can post as anybody. It's almost impossible to be censored. Posts that get censored on other forums often are copied and wind up there. Currently, the site is in a state of war regarding a couple of Chicago based umpires groups. An umpire named Jeff Rutledge is taking the worst of the beatings. In another thread here, I asked a Chicago umpire about Jeff, but he never responded.

Hope this helps.

Just a note on the online links that Tall has posted. Note that most of those are UMPIRE links and are interaction between Umpires. It can be kind of like jumping in the deep end of the pool. It is something you have to be ready to do.

I am active on some of those with the exception of eteams. I still do read McGriffs, but have not posted there in years.

Officiating.com and ABUA are, in my opinion, a valuable resource. Beware though, these can be some advanced discussions with stron personalities. However they are a great oppportunity to learn.

I do not support the personal attacks on umpires that you will find on those sites and I would ask that you dont bring that here.... Understand that this forum is a direct link between players, coaches parents and umpires.......we need to be more tolerant here....

Under resources I have:

2005 Baseball Rules Differences (NFHS, NCAA, OBR)
Jaksa/Roder
PBUC Manual
Jim Evans Annotated (JEA)
CCA Mechanics

current rulebooks: 2005

NFHS
OBR
LEGION
PONY
NCAA

Eternally grateful for the info piaa.

Whatever I can do to help you along please let me know.

Are there any web sites to access about umpireing mechanics?

Thanks for the kind words from pilsner. I Like PIAA I am the rules interpreter for my HS/college group, as well as being in charge of training. I also am the VP of the LL state umpire's assoc. I frequent all the boards listed above plus the NFHS board. This is a good source for HS rules also. In addition, I belong to several private groups. As PIAA said this a very civil board and should stay that way. It is also good to see more new posters. I too am happy to share any info I can. I have found that I enjoy teaching as much or more than working.

Thanks to you also Michael.

I've checked out a number of different sites but on some of them the posters seem more intent on insulting one another or arguing about who is more right about a call, situation etc. In some cases it's probably fortunate that they're not in the same room.

On the HSBBW site people are actually concerned with sharing info and situations for the sake of teaching and learning. In a few posts I've seen some feathers get ruffled but nothing of a mean spirited nature. People seem to disagree respectfully. As long as all of this holds true, I'll remain a member.

Additional note to Michael,
Am. Legion team from my area should be in Salisbury for the weekend. Team is Mohican Post 553 from So Glens Falls, NY. I believe they're playing a couple of games vs the Salisbury Legion Team. Hope they behave. (just kidding)

quote:

Originally posted by TallUmp:

In another thread here, I asked a Chicago umpire about Jeff, but he never responded.

Check your PM's. The Rutledge thing has no place on this forum. It's not an accident that I use this forum and not McGriff's, that place is nuts! Sorry I didn't respond sooner, your request was the first topic of page 2 of that thread and I missed seeing that the thread had 2 pages.

quote:

Originally posted by pilsner:
Thanks to you also Michael.

I've checked out a number of different sites but on some of them the posters seem more intent on insulting one another or arguing about who is more right about a call, situation etc. In some cases it's probably fortunate that they're not in the same room.

On the HSBBW site people are actually concerned with sharing info and situations for the sake of teaching and learning. In a few posts I've seen some feathers get ruffled but nothing of a mean spirited nature. People seem to disagree respectfully. As long as all of this holds true, I'll remain a member.

The HSBBWEB will stay that way. You can bet on that IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by pilsner:
Additional note to Michael,
Am. Legion team from my area should be in Salisbury for the weekend. Team is Mohican Post 553 from So Glens Falls, NY. I believe they're playing a couple of games vs the Salisbury Legion Team. Hope they behave. (just kidding)

You are correct that they played our local team Friday night. It was a double that they lost both halves of but behaved extremely well. The Salisbury team, coaches and parents acted like idiots. I site supervise for the local Park & Rec so I was there in that capacity Friday. The first game had what Sal thought was a walk-off HR but the PU called it foul. He ended up hitting a double so it made no difference but everyone came unglued. I threatened several parents with leaving while the umps took care of on the field. I was embarrassed to be from Salisbury. Hopefully they will consider coming back.

Salisbury & So Glens Falls started a home & home thing a couple of years ago. Salisbury came up here last year. I worked the tourney that SGF hosted (they have one every year in July) but didn't cover any Salisbury games. I didn't hear about any problems though. Sorry things turned out the way they did.

I would add that a couple of the coaches read the team and parents the riot act between games. I would be interested, if you talk to the team, their impression. The NY team seemed to be a class act. They had a close double play that the BR wanted to object to and the 1st base coach sent him to the dugout.

I'll be talking to the team reps within the next week. Their tournament begins July 14th. I'll give you some feedback.