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Member
I received this interesting question about the strike zone in a recent personal message. It is an excellent question regarding something that comes up from time-to-time and I thought that it was something worth sharing here.
I will respect the privacy of the person who asked me this. The name of the person who asked has been ommitted...to protect the innocent- and, perhaps, the guilty!
"I am just wondering what can be done when you run into one of those umpires that are effectively interpreting the rules to the way they want the game to be? I am not talking about judgement calls that you disagree with. Yesterday at the 18U ASA state tournament we had an umpire tell the coaches in pregame meeting (his words) "I call a tight strike zone very little on the corners and nothing above the waist". Ump is forcing 18U pitchers to throw the ball over the middle of the plate right in the wheelhouse to strong experienced players that are trained to drive that pitch up the middle... an ump like I mentioned above in my opinion is a menace. Younger pitchers are going to have trouble hitting that zone and get frustrated, and older players are now in danger."
From the standpoint of managing a game and avoiding problems, this umpire started out on the wrong foot. You should NEVER go into any explanations of how you're going to call "your" strike zone at the pre-game meeting. Especially if "your" strike zone is something like this guy is describing- a blatant disregard for the rule as written and the interpretations offered through ASA umpire training.
A respected baseball umpire wrote a book entitled "101 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Baseball Game" and this was one of them.
I really don't understand why some umpires feel that they have to make such gross adjustments to the strike zone. Do they really think that their personal idea of how it should be called is better that the written rule and all of the instruction that they are offered? It's bad enough if you have an umpire calling this truncated zone, but it's even worse when he takes the time to, essentially, tell the coaches up front that he is going to disregard the rules.
Some of the ways this can go downhill fast:
- This approach starts the game out on a confrontational tone. If the coach says anything, the umpire is likely to take it as questioning his authority and become defensive.
- If, during the game, he calls a strike on a pitch right down the middle and just above the belt (a perfectly good pitch), then the other coach has a right to be mad because this guy has already told you that was going to be a ball.
- It plants a seed in the coach's minds that, "If this guy is going to ignore the proper strike zone, I wonder what other rules he is going to ignore?".
Calling a strike zone that isn't what the sanctioning body intends is bad practice. Telling everybody up-front that you're going to do that is stupid! This is something that well-trained umpires are specifically trained not to do.
Back when I was coaching, I had this same thing come up in one of my pre-games. Knowing that any comments on my part could be taken the wrong way, I listened to the umpire's explanation and kept my mouth shut. But, I did kind of roll my eyes. The umpire saw that and was immediately right up in my face asking, "Do you have a problem with that, coach?".
(And that is one way this can turn out badly. An umpire who has the attitude that "my way is better" is likely to be an umpire with an over-inflated ego who cannot handle any criticism. The coach is kind of darned if he speaks up and darned if he doesn't.)
My response was, "So you're telling us that today you will be calling pitches that are strikes "balls" and pitches that are balls "strikes"?". As expected, this really set the guy off and he treatened to eject me right there on the spot.
As a coach, you're kind of between a rock and a hard place. About the only option you have is to let the game start, see how the strike zone really plays out during the game and have your players adjust accordingly- and hope for the best. After the game, I would track down whoever is in charge of the umpires and relate the story to him in a calm and factual manner. The guys that oversee the umpires really do care about stuff like this and would probably be interested to know that one of his umpires is ignoring the sanctioning body's guidelines.
I will respect the privacy of the person who asked me this. The name of the person who asked has been ommitted...to protect the innocent- and, perhaps, the guilty!
"I am just wondering what can be done when you run into one of those umpires that are effectively interpreting the rules to the way they want the game to be? I am not talking about judgement calls that you disagree with. Yesterday at the 18U ASA state tournament we had an umpire tell the coaches in pregame meeting (his words) "I call a tight strike zone very little on the corners and nothing above the waist". Ump is forcing 18U pitchers to throw the ball over the middle of the plate right in the wheelhouse to strong experienced players that are trained to drive that pitch up the middle... an ump like I mentioned above in my opinion is a menace. Younger pitchers are going to have trouble hitting that zone and get frustrated, and older players are now in danger."
From the standpoint of managing a game and avoiding problems, this umpire started out on the wrong foot. You should NEVER go into any explanations of how you're going to call "your" strike zone at the pre-game meeting. Especially if "your" strike zone is something like this guy is describing- a blatant disregard for the rule as written and the interpretations offered through ASA umpire training.
A respected baseball umpire wrote a book entitled "101 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Baseball Game" and this was one of them.
I really don't understand why some umpires feel that they have to make such gross adjustments to the strike zone. Do they really think that their personal idea of how it should be called is better that the written rule and all of the instruction that they are offered? It's bad enough if you have an umpire calling this truncated zone, but it's even worse when he takes the time to, essentially, tell the coaches up front that he is going to disregard the rules.
Some of the ways this can go downhill fast:
- This approach starts the game out on a confrontational tone. If the coach says anything, the umpire is likely to take it as questioning his authority and become defensive.
- If, during the game, he calls a strike on a pitch right down the middle and just above the belt (a perfectly good pitch), then the other coach has a right to be mad because this guy has already told you that was going to be a ball.
- It plants a seed in the coach's minds that, "If this guy is going to ignore the proper strike zone, I wonder what other rules he is going to ignore?".
Calling a strike zone that isn't what the sanctioning body intends is bad practice. Telling everybody up-front that you're going to do that is stupid! This is something that well-trained umpires are specifically trained not to do.
Back when I was coaching, I had this same thing come up in one of my pre-games. Knowing that any comments on my part could be taken the wrong way, I listened to the umpire's explanation and kept my mouth shut. But, I did kind of roll my eyes. The umpire saw that and was immediately right up in my face asking, "Do you have a problem with that, coach?".
(And that is one way this can turn out badly. An umpire who has the attitude that "my way is better" is likely to be an umpire with an over-inflated ego who cannot handle any criticism. The coach is kind of darned if he speaks up and darned if he doesn't.)
My response was, "So you're telling us that today you will be calling pitches that are strikes "balls" and pitches that are balls "strikes"?". As expected, this really set the guy off and he treatened to eject me right there on the spot.
As a coach, you're kind of between a rock and a hard place. About the only option you have is to let the game start, see how the strike zone really plays out during the game and have your players adjust accordingly- and hope for the best. After the game, I would track down whoever is in charge of the umpires and relate the story to him in a calm and factual manner. The guys that oversee the umpires really do care about stuff like this and would probably be interested to know that one of his umpires is ignoring the sanctioning body's guidelines.