Phantom Homerun

One of the problems I have with HS playoff baseball is the use of umpires in mechanics that they have little or no experience in.........

Most HS baseball is done by 2 man...and many of us have experience beyond HS with 3 Man mechanics....I'd rather see a good 3 man game than a lousy 4 man game anyday...

Admittedly I am rusty on 4 man as well...I took much of this from a clinic handout, dont know how old it is....but this is what I have, again this may not be the most current mechanic for 4 man.....but regardless there should have been eyes on the ball...

Guide:
U1- HP
U2- 1st Base
U3- 2nd Base
U4- 3rd Base

U1 has NO outfield responsibility....

Someone goes OUT on almost all fly balls except obvious “cans of corn”

Everything hinges on where U3 is positioned
A. If U3 is OUT (in E )(he would be with no outs)
B. U3 is the “KEY” for rotation and responsibility
C. U3 covers anything in the “V” -- hit directly at any outfielder or coming in
toward center
D. U2 covers right fielder moving toward the foul line
E. U4 covers left fielder moving toward the foul line
F. If an umpire goes out, they stay out...other umpires revert to 3 man

So in your situation, U4 (3rd base) should have gone out and down the line to rule on the trouble ball.....

I fairly well agree with PIAA except that the PU has no outfield responsibility. On this play the U4, which I call U3, should go out for the fair/foul and HR call. At that point the PU should go down to third and should have some look at the play. U2, which should called U1, should watch the touch at first and rotate home.
Even for some odd reason the third base umpire doesn't go out and calls it from his spot behind third, he should see it.
The other problem with HS playoffs is many times the best umpires don't get the big assignments.

Mike just about has it.

U3 goes out, because there is a boundary call--the ball is his primary responsibility. PU begins to rotate up to 3B, but he should still be watching the ball, since he has no other responsibility until BR rounds 2B. U2 should be breaking in and has BR after rounding 1B and committing to 2B. U1 stays put and sees the touch of 1B and, if there had been a play back into 1B, that is also his.

U3 and PU both had responsibility on the ball (primary and secondary, respectively.) If, somehow, the ball still was in the air when BR committed to 2B, U1 also would have secondary responsibility. If, even more unlikely, the ball was in the air when BR committed to 3B, U1 would have rotated down to HP, PU and U1 would no longer have secondary responsibility on the ball, and U2 would have.

Long and short, in 4-man with no runners, at least two umpires have some responsibility on the ball at all times.

quote:

The other problem with HS playoffs is many times the best umpires don't get the big assignments.

so true... in TX the coaches generally pick the umpires for the playoffs and in a lot of cases they pick umpires that they know and think they can somewhat control. They are generally afraid of being dumped as the better umpires will not put up with their cr#p and general whining during a game. In this game my guess is that the crew was split between two different chapters since the schools are covered by different chapters during the regular season.

The schools also have the option of going neutral so the crew would come from outside both schools regular chapters.

People over think four man. As soon as an umpire goes out, it's three man.

In MD you are not allowed to work any school you had during the season, or may have had during the season. Our conference is split in two sections. We cover one and another group covers the other, however, they do play across lines so we can't do any teams from the other half of the conference. Between the two halves we had three teams in the finals, all of which won. The other group did a semi that didn't involve any of the teams and we did the final of the one division that we didn't have a team in. I think that is a much better system. The state decides what game we cover and then we assign who goes. They simply insist that each group sends the best available.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael S. Taylor:
In MD you are not allowed to work any school you had during the season, or may have had during the season. Our conference is split in two sections. We cover one and another group covers the other, however, they do play across lines so we can't do any teams from the other half of the conference. Between the two halves we had three teams in the finals, all of which won. The other group did a semi that didn't involve any of the teams and we did the final of the one division that we didn't have a team in. I think that is a much better system. The state decides what game we cover and then we assign who goes. They simply insist that each group sends the best available.

I would like to see TASO/UIL change the process... Coaches should submit a "anybody but" list vs "this is who I want" list. They would get much better crews vs the ones they pick...

I hate the way NC does their post season umpire selection. First two rounds you use the umps you had all season. Not bad but if you have a bad association it can hurt you. The next three rounds is you use a neutral association chosen by the home team. This is not bad because if you know of a good association you can get them. We played a third round game Friday night and used two guys who do college ball. It was night and day different in how the game went versus the first two rounds and regular season. It's not like we have bad umps in our association but none of them have done college level. The experience is not there like in the neutral association.

Then we get to the state championship which is best out of three. Now the state picks the umps based on seniority not ability. We played in the state championship two years ago and our pitcher is now in pro ball and the other team's pitcher is at a high level DI school. Combined they each gave up 3 hits (our guy threw a no hitter - they gave up three hits) and combined they gave up 26 walks (our guy had 12 and the other guy had 14).

This guy behind the plate probably wasn't a bad ump overall with the teams where he was from. But when you have two guys throwing 90 you can't just throw out any guy to call balls and strikes. This is where the seniority and not ability can hurt two teams.

The coaches shouldn't have any say in who works. They generally don't know jack about what a good umpire does. While some consideration should be given to senority, ability is the important thing.
There was an association that sent a crew to states that butchered it so badly they didn't get a game for three or four years. And then only they proved that they were actually training.

quote:

The coaches shouldn't have any say in who works. They generally don't know jack about what a good umpire does. While some consideration should be given to senority, ability is the important thing.

I don't know how they do it in baseball here, but in basketball this year our school had an official as the "lead official" for the regional tournament that schools wouldn't even hire during the season. None of the coaches could believe that the IHSA would hire this guy. And then I saw he had a bigger regional the very next week.

They need some objective way to rate these officials to put the best out there...

piaa_ump and Mike, thank you for the excellent explanation! Like many occupations, the general public never quite appreciate the work involved until someone sheds some light.