Umpires

So then am I to believe that you and your son will understand when his coach is livid after your son takes a called strike 3 right down the center of the plate?

 

Mistakes happen. It's part of the game. Ups and downs. Teach your son to not be livid over such little things and he will become a more consistent and probably better baseball player. 

He likes to swing and wants to swing but when they hit the plate and you are called out I think everyone would be just a little bit irritated.  He really hates to strike out and a backwards K he hates it even more.  He just hates to lose a battle on such a poor call.  

It's part of the game. The sooner he understands that the better he will be for it. How about the line drive smoked that a guy lays out and makes a circus catch on? Then the blooper off the end of the bat that falls in? Or the perfect throw to 2B to nail a runner only to have the mif not get there in time? Then the error he gets when the runner reaches 3B? Or the 25 balls he blocks off his forearms, chest, face, then he set's up off the plate and the pitcher throws a heater 4 balls inside and he gets called for a passed ball? Or the ball he hits to the deepest part of the park for the go ahead sac fly but the runner pulls a bonehead play and is almost home when it's caught? I could go on and on. Players who have success in this game and enjoy this game learn that the game is not fair. And you benefit from that just as much as you suffer from it. That pitcher benefitted from the bad call. Just like he suffered for the strike that got called a ball somewhere along the line. Or that great pitch someone got fisted on or hooked around and ended up with a base hit. It's baseball.

well if he intends to play for awhile he has to learn that you have to keep an even disposition. do not get too high when you do well and not to low when things go south. 

 

Where were the other two?

 

It's all about perspective.

I've seen umpires make a bad call on a strike thousands of times. I've never seen an ump make a bad call on all three strikes. What about the other two? Tell the player worry about the other two he didn't get a hit on and not worry about that one.

Great responses already so I'm going in another direction.  What did he do his next at bat?  Did that call carry over to where he failed in his next at bat?  End of the day that's what matters - how did he bounce back from this because there is absolutely nothing he can do about it once it's called.

Umpires have been a problem this season.  Very inconsistent.  I understand a blown call here an there, but we have had some obvious ones.  We have had guys standing 5 feet behind the catcher with their hands on knees, guys working behind the pitcher instead of the plate, and one guy who blew the hbp calling a foul ball when it hit the elbow guard (and I know the guy, he's a better umpire than that).  From my experience, as long as they are in the proper positions, hustling from behind the plate, and at least showing they want to be there they'll get the leeway from the peanut gallery on a bad call here and there. 

 

But like everyone else said, as a player you need to learn to deal with it. 

Must have been one heckova curveball - talk about dropping off the table!

 

Perhaps a little perspective will help... Have your son sign up to learn to be an umpire so he can understand what it takes to do the job. All 3 of mine did and it changed how they approached the game (say nothing of the extra spending money through college).

 

Your son will probably start in "Minors" (U10) and start calling pitches anywhere close to the plate in order to not be behind that plate for too long ;-)  Oh and when he does - he'll hear it from the players, coaches, and parents thus gaining more perspective...

If your son brought it home with him he needs to learn more about the mental side of the game. A hitter can walk back to the dugout talking to himself. But he has to get over it by the time he hits his position. He definitely needs to get over it before his next at bat.

 

My son caught a lot through age twelve. That taught him to be buddies with the umpire and shrug off what he felt were bad calls. By the time he was a soph he had forgotten about getting along with umpires. After cranking one out just foul He took a called third on a horrible call. The umpire got fooled on a curve. It broke around the plate. My son was probably upset he just missed a homer. He turned around and said, "What the" and stopped. It was the third out. The umpire warned him to start walking towards his position. His coach yelled at him to sit on the damn bench. His day was over. He got an earful regarding respecting umpires, composure and turning the page on bad calls. When my son got in the car back at the high school I told him I was with the coach. End of conversation. By the time my son finished high school ball he was on a friendly name to name basis (their names were Mr. X) with most of the umpires.

My son took strike 3 last week.  It was at the shins and down the opposite batters box line.  Unhittable and would have been ridiculous to swing at.  Would have been nice to have that first pitch fastball foul ball back wouldn't it?  I tell him when you get that cookie you can't miss it.  Cause when you take/miss/foul off the cookie you inevitably seem to get that bad strike 3 called!  And yes many umpires are very bad and no there isn't a thing you can do about it.  Don't miss the center cut one!

I'm curious what his coach said, if anything.  Did the coach ream him out for not swinging or did he tell the kid it was a tough call...or did he not address it at all?

This is pretty much my argument for not liking instant replay.  Don't mean to open a can of worms, but it's baseball.  Good calls and bad calls are part of the game.  I, personally, think it is part of the charm and frustration and exhilaration of the game.  I helps a person deal with the ups and downs of life and all the other unfair stuff that goes on with life.  If you can't deal with a bad call from an ump, how are you going to deal with some of life's other unfairness's?  You don't get instant replay in life to change something that was thrown at you.  

As far as I know the coach didn't say a word to him and won't because there is no point he knows he is the best most consistent hitter he has.  I realize that is part of the game and so does he but he was just very frustrated knowing the ball was unhittable and there was nothing he could do.  Its not like he yelled at the ump and acted mad at the ump he was shocked.  Then the shock became mad.  That is one thing he will not do is argue or even say a word to the ump except he usually chats it up with the ump at 1st base I am sure he wasn't too chatty that day.  His next at bat he grounded out but got a run in so I call that an even trade.  We have seen bad calls all around but none quite that bad in HS ball.  Hell I even seen a strike called on a girl in softball because the ball bounced in but was at the knees as it crossed the plate but that was at 12U park ball.  I feel bad for him but like I say to him a lot if that is the worst thing that happens to you today you are doing pretty good.  

Irondad – If I've learned one thing about baseball is you have to have to forget the bad call injustices QUICKLY.

It’s the nature of the game and will happen over and over and over and over again.

You know what you saw. Leave it at that. NOTHING you can do.

Now there's a new rule I would like to see... any ball off of "hitter's armor" should be considered a foul ball!

Originally Posted by bballman:

This is pretty much my argument for not liking instant replay. …

 

I get what you’re saying, but to me it’s pretty much my argument for liking IR. There are plenty of injustices in life to learn from, so if some of them can be eliminated, why not do it?

       
       

I would second the nomination of that rule.

I've told my son this for years. In every at bat you get 3 strikes. The pitcher gets one, you get one, and the ump gets one. Don't let the at bat fall into the hands of the ump. Once a player understands that they'll be better off for it.

And just an FYI, my son has been there and done that as far as getting a ball hitting the plate called a strike. He just laughs to himself and walks away. When the at bat is over, it's over. Flush it.

I tell my guys we have one rule that they need to buy into for the rest of their life.  We call it the 3.5 rule.  When something bad happens - error, bad call, brain fart, whatever - they have 3 seconds to be ticked off, hate themselves or whatever bad reaction they want to have in their head (they cannot act out like a spoiled child).  After the 3 seconds is over then they move on.  Something good happens they have 5 seconds to enjoy the moment and we let them be a little bit more expressive here but still have class.  We are humans and we will react to good and bad situations.  You cannot overcome this and not sure if you even want to.  But while we can't stop the reaction we can control how we act and how long we react.  At the end of the 3 or 5 seconds that game is going to resume whether they are part of it mentally or not.  React, recover and move on.

I've seen a few umpires this season with terrible zones.  One would consistently call a very outside strike to right handed batters.  These pitches were on the chalk line of the left handed box or often actually inside the left handed box itself.  And what made it worse was after an inning or so the pitchers knew it.  And they exploited it like a video game cheat.  Every pitch they threw the whole game was away.  It absolutely neutered the right handed batters as they literally could not reach the ball with their bats.  This same exact pitch was called a ball to lefty's because, as I wrote, it was in the left handed box and almost hitting the batter.  Never have I seen so many bad lunging swings from good hitters.  It was an awful game to watch.  Just absurd.  I guess the only lesson learned was, if the pitcher made a mistake by not throwing into the left handed box, and actually threw a pitch over the plate, you better not miss it.   

If the ball is on the other chalk line and the pitchers know they are getting strikes there, then the batters should know that too and make the adjustment. So why didn't the batters get as legally close as they could to the plate? Beyond that it's a math problem...

 

Batters boxes are 4'x6'

Plate is 17" wide

Edge of plate to chalk line of batters box 6"

34" bat with a sweet spot about 4-6" down (at most)?

 

So "at most" the chalk line in the other batters box is 29" from where a batter's *toes* could legally be in the other box not including their arm extension which probably gives them another couple of inches. A pitch that is "on the chalk line" is probably in the sweet spot...  If not, then foul it off and make the pitcher throw another. IOW, make the adjustment. If the pitcher decides to "come inside" and hits the batter who's on the line, well guess who's going to 1b?  The guy with the elbow guard - that's who.

 

Wide strikes are not "terrible zones" unless of course only called one way which apparently it wasn't according to your post. Now worm burners and bird catchers, those are strikes that get more coaches ire than anything else.

Not true.  We have had such bad umpires they have called that a foul ball.  

When my son's team play Fairfax HS this spring they had a D-1 commit (I heard) pitching. He threw some incredible breaking CBs/sliders that just broke a foot in the last 10' or so. The umpire was calling strikes that were up to 4-5" off the plate all night provided they looked good (it seemed). Just like the LLWS strikezone. I was sitting directly behind home plate and saw it all. To be fair, our pitcher adjusted and just kept pouring FBs and CBs (much less break) to 2-4" off the palte and those were strikes too. My son was the only LHB on both sides and benefitted from the confusion that caused. But the RHBs quickly moved to being on top of the plate and had to adjust.Personally, I thought the SZ that night was a bit of a joke. But the main thing is whether the ump was consistent (and he was).

       
       
John I am not even sure where to start with this.  I guess I would never have anticipated someone actually suggesting that 'strikes' down the opposite batters box chalk line are not only Ok but very hittable.  First we shouldn't have to 'extend' to hit any pitch.  Second taking a 32" inch bat which would be a much more common size and with your hands in close to your body where they belong there is almost no chance of getting the sweet spot on that pitch.  The only remote possibility is on a pitch right at the bottom of the rib cage where your hands are so that the bat is perfectly horizontal to the ground.  Remember on any pitch below your hands the barrel has to drop putting the bat at various angles relative to the ground.  By the time you get to a legit knee high ball it is questionable if you could even foul that off (staying within your mechanics).  If one really wanted to you could do the math using a triangle calculator.  I won't waste my time at this point because common sense tells me that is a horrible pitch to call a strike.  Not trying to be funny here but I can't help but wonder if you do some umpiring?  I can't imagine any coach defending that type of strike zone.

Other than the fact that he's right...a pitch on the chalk line is very hittable with aluminum bats.

 

I always love it (note the sarcasm) when spectators make the claim that pitches are further in or out than they really are. I'm not saying there aren't bad umpires out there--believe me, I evaluate--but when it comes to a parent saying where a pitch was and an umpire, I know who's opinion holds more weight. 

 

But let's say that you have a better idea of where that pitch is than the guy who's a few feet away and is the only one who doesn't care about the outcome. Let's use that chalk line as an example. If (and this is a big if,) the boxes are laid out correctly, a pitch grazing the chalk is less than three inches off the plate. This isn't MLB. If you don't give something off the plate, it's going to be a long day. Going back to that big if, most HS fields I've been on use lines so thick, you'd think Rick James laid them out. Add an additional two inches to the width of the line, and a pitch that grazes the line is actually less than an inch off the plate, and a pitch that's entirely on the line is well within where you need to get HS strikes.

Wow, we must have a lot of umpires on this site!!  First if the batters box is laid out correctly it is 6" to the OUTSIDE of the line.  I get they are not always chalked correctly and yes.this may.change our conversation if the line is one inch from the plate.  But given a properly lined batters box any pitch that even grazes the batters bix line is more than 3 inches off the plate.  And that is the very inside of the ball (to the hitter).  The batter needs to hit near vertical center of the ball with the sweet spot.  And by the way sweet spots are only marginally bigger on aluminum bats than wood bats.  Sweet spots have more to do with the 'node' than the material the bat is made of.  And bbcor and wood are pretty close cousins.  And to call this pitch easily hittable...  I just can't imagine why anyone would even think that let alone say it!

P.S. I guess I am going to have to stop teaching my pitchers to keep the ball away.  I never realized how 'easy' it is to hit that pitch!!!

Excellent article for you.  See the sweet spot area of the article in particular.

http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/bats/alumwood.html

Thought of this thread last night after a tough game. Lost in 10 innings. Even the local newspaper noted that it looked like our boys had won the game in the 7^th when the ump called a ball on a belt-high 1-2 pitch right down Broadway.  The next pitch looked pretty good to  me too. 

 

Like somebody said above, baseball, like life, is not always fair.  So you have to play so well and so hard that one or two calls or one or two plays can't make a difference in the outcome.

w/r/t getting a foul called on an elbow pad hit... Did it happen just once or all game? Did the batter start a swing or just not moving and got hit on the elbow pad?  Tell you what - you get behind the dish with someone throwing hard, inside, and possibly slightly high and then take a foul ball off your equipment or body - then tell me you won't flinch if it happens again. Or possibly you've learned through the game that the catcher isn't very good - so it's possible you miss stuff because you're in self preservation mode. In any case, it's an oh well type scenario for me and definitely had to be there to see...  An elbow guard *definitely* has a very similar *sound* to the nub of the bat - so if there even was a slightly attempted swing I can logically see why the sound was used perhaps over the visual.

 

As for the "science" behind bat sweet spots... Too much data for me to worry about. I agree with Matt13 - this isn't pro baseball where pitchers have built up *years* of control.  You *have* to 'take pitches' sometimes in order to keep the game moving - trust me coaches know it, batters know it, but it seems parents don't get it. Even if you don't "barrel up" or "square up" that outside pitch, it's also very possible to spoil it (do you find it odd to call it squaring up two round objects). You know it's being called and if you're "that good" you should be able to foul it off in hopes the pitcher will make a mistake on the next one.

 

Finally while most places have a template for drawing boxes and lines, they don't do it right. I usually see edge of the chalk line about 1-2" from the plate - essentially centering the chalk dropping on the center of the template not the inside of the template (making it even *easier* for the batter to get closer to the outside pitch).  You could of course volunteer to make those lines correctly before every home game if you had the desire and felt whomever is doing is doing it wrong costing your team strikes. Give it about 2 innings - you probably don't see the lines anyway.

I guess everyone else is wrong and you're right. The late Michael S. Taylor (also an umpire) had a saying to the effect of, "If it's you against the world, the world is probably right."

 

For the record, I don't think anyone else on this thread is an umpire, but if you don't know me, I am indeed an umpire. I'd like to think I'm pretty good, and always looking to get better. I would also posit that the levels I work and the assignments I get bear this out. I didn't get to where I did--and I don't stay there--by calling three-hour walkfests. The coaches seem to agree, based off of their ratings. My evaluators also seem to agree.

 

Out of curiosity, how do you know where the pitches with which you have issue were actually located?

I just want to know if you two are umps?  Yes we coaches know that the umps want to get to dinner or the local watering hole and will give strikes off the plate.  That doesn't make it right and it doesn't make those pitches any more hittable.  Think about what you just said...  "you should be able to foul it off and hope the pitcher makes a mistake on the next one".  If you are an umpire is that really the standard you want to set?  'Hey I want to get out of here tonight so if it is even possible to reach it and foul it off you better swing cause I will call it a strike'???  That's a disgrace.  Sadly it happens a lot though.  Its posts like your last one that might change the tide a little on this thread.  Suddenly it may not be the parents and coaches that are rude!  We have departed from the 'everybody makes mistakes' conversation.   Now you are talking about calling a horrible game by design!  I am more than ok with an ump blowing a call.  It happens.   In fact nothing lightens me up faster than an ump or ref who says "hey I missed that one".  Ok I can live with that.  But 'hey I am going to call unhittable pitches strikes so the game isn't so long'???  No can't live with that.  Only time that is remotely ok is when its the 2nd inning you are winning 22-1 and the ump comes to you and says 'tell your guys to be swinging I am going to open up the strike zone here'.  I can live with that also.  But to be honest I would self police that anyway.  With a huge lead early I always tell my kids to swing and do everything in their power not to take a walk.

With an attitude like that, no wonder you want to blame everyone else for your failings. Do baseball a service and either fix yourself or stop coaching.

       
       
Just took the time to re read every post on this thread.  Not sure who the 'everyone' is???  It is only a party of two supporting your opinion.  Pretty much everyone else references 'bad calls' or 'mistakes'.  I think we all agree people are not perfect so you have to accept some blown calls.  But now you are talking about making bad calls with intent.  That takes this in a whole different direction and sadly confirms what many of we coaches have known for years.

There was no attempted swing.  It was a curve ball, that didn't curve, and my kid turned away late and it caught the elbow pad.  Now truth be told, the guy is a pretty good ump (and not a bad guy either). Between innings, he admitted that it was the 4th time this year he made that mistake. 

       
       
Ha! Typical.  Go put your patch on and bully some coaches and parents.

Let's see...you use the term "umpires" perjoratively as if anyone who disagrees with you can't possibly be anything else, and as if umpires are bad things. Then you pull out this gem: "Yes we coaches know that the umps want to get to dinner or the local watering hole and will give strikes off the plate."

 

You've been asked where you get your assessment of what you saw, and refused. 

 

Yet, I'm the bully. My advice to you stands...or should I restate it as that you may want to look at what you are saying here, because it's (I hope) not the picture you want to paint of yourself.

 

Now that I've bullied my way through my college season, I get to bully my way through the HS sectional 2nd round, quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. Then I get to have fun bullying my way at the state tournament. All this bullying sure gets me tired. Too bad I get so little sleep, between working a full-time job and traveling up to two hours to and from HS game sites...it only leaves me about ten hours a day to do everything else...eat, spend time with my daughter, taking care of chores, talking to my mentors, talking to umpires I mentor, moderating baseball sites, refreshing myself on situations that I may be unsure of...then before bed, I get to work on my ejection mechanic that I absolutely love, because I love having to add paperwork to my plate. Then I sleep and dream of shouting down coaches and fans: "Why did you call that pitch, you moron!" "Why did you leave that POS in to get rocked?" 

 

And that's just HS. I get to take time off from work and drive up to six hours each way during the college season. No worries, I have plenty of PTO to use. It's not as if I'll ever want to take a vacation or get sick.

Yep, that's what I live for...showing my authority for what amounts to about $2000 a year after taxes and expenses.

       

This could go on forever.  I am not going anywhere.  I will continue to coach and do a very good job.  Obviously you are pretty impressed with your abilities as an ump.  And no I did not originally use the term ump pejoratively.  I was just stunned that two people felt it was ok to call strikes down the opposite batters box line.  You obviously have no respect for me and that's fine cause it has no impact on my life.  And I am sure you could care less what I think about you.  So you keep living your life and I will keep living mine.  Good luck.