Thursday, November 20, 2008

Umpires and Rules: Where does the blame go?

This last weekend, my daughter’s travel team was involved in a tournament in Walnut, CA. It was a great weekend, barring smoke from the fires in Chino Hills on Sunday. Showtime won their first elimination game 1-0 in the eighth inning when a run scored from third on an illegal pitch. Since our opponent was the home team, they still had one more chance to bat.

In their half of the inning, they started with the tie breaker runner on 2nd base. The batter bunted the girl to third, and then advanced to second as our defense chose to try to get the lead runner. So they had runners at 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. The tying run was 60 feet away with NOBODY out! Two infield ground balls and an infield pop fly later, the game was over and we won 1-0.

During the following game, a few of us parents were talking with the umpire, who had also covered the first game. He told us how he heard a few of the parents of the other team saying how the “umpires cost them the game.” And he said the same thing as I had mentioned earlier. They had a runner 60 feet away from tying the game with NOBODY out. The umpires did not cost them the game. The fact that three batters came up and could not move the runner cost them the game.

But let’s add to that. The fact that they went seven innings previously without scoring a run cost them the game. The fact that the pitcher was called a second time, (she had received a warning first, and then called for an illegal pitch earlier. All three times for rubbing her hand in the dirt then going to the ball without wiping her hand off.) cost them the game.

Parents and coaches, when you not only allow, but begin the blame game after a loss you are hurting your team and your players individually. If the players are allowed to pass off their failures on the umpires, or anything else for that matter, then it creates a situation where improvement does not take place. Why should I get better if it wasn’t my fault that I lost? It wasn’t my fault, the umpire cost me that run? It wasn’t my fault I left that curve ball over the middle of the plate, that girl shouldn’t have hit it so far. Do you see where I’m going?

Especially in a one run game, there are so many opportunities that a coach can demonstrate to his or her team where the team could have scored and won the game. Are umpires going to make mistakes now and then? Sure they are. But why are you in the position that the mistake would have such a dramatic impact? I know, there have been two or three situations in the NFL this year where umpire literally did cost somebody a game (and bettors thousands of dollars) with a bad call. But even in those games, I bet the coaching staff could easily point out several opportunities for their team to score aside from the situation where the errant call was made.

Parents and Coaches: Isn’t part of your job as a parent or a coach is to teach your players to be responsible for their actions; their improvement; their game? Then don’t minimize the effort you put in teaching these values by blaming the umpires, the weather, or the man from mars for your loss.

And lastly but not leastly…er least; to all governing bodies of the various sports. If you are not going to have your officials enforce rules then change the rules. Crow Hopping by pitchers in softball is one example. The other is batters hitting the ball out of the batters box; especially slappers.

During pool play on Saturday, we were up against the team that eventually won the tournament. They were a very disciplined team from Thousand Oaks. They had three or four batters who were lefty slappers. In slapping, it is not uncommon for the slapper to actually have one foot partially or all the way out of the box when making contact with the ball. By the rules, the batter should be called out.

I remember reading an article several years ago where the University of Arizona had conducted a study of left handed slappers and found that out of almost 500 at bats, only about 10 slappers got called out for being out of the box. In recent years it seems that the umpires are calling this rule a little more tightly. Now I don’t expect the umps to call every girl whose foot is half way over the line “out”. The ump’s first job is calling balls and strikes. But we had an at bat on Saturday where the batter got fooled on a change up and was at least three feet out of the box when she hit the ball. The umpire refused to call the rule. He even walked over and scratched out the line himself. Rules were put in place a year or so ago forbidding the batters to rub out the line as many slappers would do.

If you’re not going to enforce the rule, then throw the rule out. In this case the umpire was way off base not calling the girl out. In the case of crow hopping, there is a lot more “judgment” in what the umpire may see. Plus, there is the added confusion for some umps because it is legal in men’s fastpitch to crow hop. When you consider you have a pitcher like Jennie Finch, who upon finishing her delivery is releasing the ball (legally) about 37 feet from home plate, I don’t know that crow hopping gives a pitcher any more advantage than what Finch accomplishes legally. Enforce the rule or get rid of it. It creates a battle for coaches and umpires. It takes the umpire’s mind off more important aspects of the game. Plus it is just unprofessional.

Let’s make it easy. Make the rules, make the rules make sense, and enforce the rules. Let’s get back to enjoying the game.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Why do they do it?

I have been coaching with a travel softball team, So Cal Mirage. This weekend, for the big Halloween Showcase Exposure tournament in Southern California, another team merged in with our girls because they did not get a berth in time. More correctly our two girls merged in with their team.

Saturday went well. Our games for Saturday and Sunday were at Tewinkle Park in Costa Mesa. Or at least they were supposed to be. Not receiving a message from the other coach, I drove down to Tewinkle for a 4:30 game. When I got there, the fields were empty. There was one groundskeeper with his Costa Mesa truck. He told me he had canceled the games at 9:00 AM that morning.

I asked him why you would cancel a 4:30 game at 9:00 AM. He said that it was raining then and he didn’t want anything to happen to the fields. Then he quickly added, “well, the two fields on the other side had some mud on them up against the dugouts.” Give me a break.

I used to have the same problem with the city of Garden Grove when I first started coaching at Brethren. They would cancel games scheduled for 3:15 PM because the fields were wet at 10 AM.

HELLO….this is Southern CALIFORNIA.

These fields soak up a whole lot of water. Artesia Park got a lot more rain the Tewinkle Park did and they were playing games. The difference is that when Artesia is wet, Bobby Medina gets his coaches and his crews out there and they do everything they can to make the field playable.

This guy was worried about his fields. How about worrying about the people that drove hundreds of miles from Las Vegas, Washington, Arizona, etc. so their girls could be seen by the college coaches.

Two years ago my daughter’s travel team went to ASA Western Nationals in Las Cruces, NM. In the 24 hours before the tournament started Las Cruces received around 7 inches of rain. They got more when we were there. Our afternoon game was interrupted by a downpour. The Las Cruces grounds crews stayed up all night, scraped the infields down 2 inches, and brought in new, dry dirt. How’s that for customer service.

City Halls, don’t just let your regular landscaping crews take care of your softball fields. Make sure you have someone who is very knowledgeable about field upkeep, and how to make a field playable after a little sprinkle. Please care more about the teams and players that play on your fields. It doesn’t do any good to have a great field if you shut it down to easily. Costa Mesa, you’ve done a great job remodeling Tewinkle Park. That used to be my home field. Saturday was the first I’ve been there since the remodel. Now go a step further and do everything you can to make sure games play. Maybe you have to delay them. Maybe you have to cancel a few games. But put the time and effort into serving the teams that use your fields (and pay you for that use.)