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.
1 comment:
A couple of things regarding your post:
1) We had a situation in a game a month or two ago where our pitcher was called for IP twice. No warning issued to the pitcher or coaching staff first, just called. Both times there "just happened" to be a runner on third. I have a hard time believing that in the entire game there were only two times she made
this same mistake and in both cases it was with a runner on third (two of only three times during the game that team had a runner on third during an at-bat). It certainly gives the appearance of something fishy. We lost the game 4-0, so certainly you can't lay blame for the loss at the feet of the umpire, though it's a point that you must coach harder to get the girls past the percieved injustice and focus on what they need to do. The old adage that "Girls must feel good to play good" comes into play here.
The other interesting thing is that these are the only two IP's I've seen called in games involving this team, and two of a total of three I've seen called in any game I've watched this year. And I've seen a lot more obvious opportunities for the call. For example, the girl who pitched three innings gripping the ball while in the glove, removing the ball from the glove, then bringing it back to the glove for a second time during the pitching motion. Not a warning; not a call, in not less than 27 pitches. Neither umpire knew this wasn't legal? And the 24" lane violations are plentiful too, but it's hard for the plate umpire (whose responsibility it is) to watch the feet and the ball coming at him at 55+ MPH.
2) About slappers hitting the ball out of the box. The slapper's foot must be on the ground completely (not partially) out of the box when the ball strikes the bat. If any part of the foot is on the line, they're considered in the box. Given that many slappers deliberately obscure the box lines, and that the umpire's first priority is watching the ball to see if it's in the strike zone, it's a hard thing to call. I have never seen it called, though I've seen several times where I felt it was the correct call.
Many umpires don't want to be burdened with the responsibility to call it, and in fact are happy to see the lines get obscured so they aren't caught out missing a call. IIRC, only NFHS has any penalty for deliberatly erasing the lines. And this even with umpires who normally are concerned with getting calls correct (not the only-in-it-for-the-paycheck type).
Then, in some cases where there are no lines to be seen (either gone from 5 or 6 games of play, or never drawn), I've seen umpires tell the girls that they were set up out of the box. When queried where they're supposed to be if there's no visible box, the umpires will draw lines using the girl's $200 bat. Yet, I'll bet these same umpires never called a slapper out for contact out of the box.
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