Ruined by travel ball

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No one answered my question :-/

Is there an age limit on umpires? Do they have to undergo a physical or eye test? I am wondering because the umpires this high school season seem VERY old and not very agile.

 

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No, there are no age limits, physicals or eye tests.

 

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Hats off to bretman for his candid and "to the point" answers. Some umpires would take this type of questioning as an attack on their knowledge of the game, but not so with bretman. This type of thread could easily turn ugly, but so far it has been very factual, informative and non-personal.

My take on the ability of a plate umpire to call pitches in an accurate and consistent manner boils down to technique and visual acuity. If an umpire is not standing in the proper position, how can they possibly see the strike zone? And - if they have poor vision, - well, you get my point. I've seen some pretty old, out of shape umpires, but I think technique used has more of an impact than anything.

A method for improving things might be for the coaches to complete a simple "grade card" of sorts for the game's umpires. A copy could be forwarded to the umpires sanctioning body, which could be a great tool showing where training is lacking, or improvements are needed. Another copy could be kept by high school ADs for use in suggestions for improvement. The whole point of this WOULD NOT be to attack the integrity of certain umpires, but rather to encourage a path of skills improvement.

 

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That "grade card" thing is a good idea. In fact, it's such a good idea that the OHSAA uses a similar system for all of their baseball umpires! I do not know for sure if this is used for OHSAA softball umpires. Hopefully, one of their certified softball umps will see this and answer that question.

On the baseball side, the OHSAA maintains on their website a page for baseball umpires to enter their game schedule. The AD's at the schools are then sent an email with the umpire's name and information. After the game the coach can log in to the website and rate the umpire on a scale of 1-5 in areas such as appearance, professionalism and rules knowledge. The ratings are factored in when selecting umpires for state playoffs.

Since the OHSAA has the resources to do this for baseball, I would be surprised if they don't do it for softball, too. If they don't, they should!

Even though it sounds good on paper, there is one unfortunate part to this grading system. Even with a powerful tool such as this to rate the umpires, my personal experience is that fewer than half the coaches in games I work bother to take the time to respond to the OHSAA emails and fail to enter their evaluations into the computer!

 

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My son has a pitching/batting coach who has told him, "if blue calls it a strike then its a strike". Unfortunately, you may not like it, and it might be a bad call, how many umps have ever reversed because you saw it another way?

We had an ump calling a chin high strike zone. He was consistent, but the kids had to adjust and try and hit them. What else can you do! :'(

 

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while we can go on and on for weeks attesting to bad umpires, realize first:

were they bad for BOTH teams
were the close call decisions made against BOTH teams

in fairness to being hosed, you can't win em all, nor can you get every call to go your way...hopefully the girls playing on these respective teams don't trip and fall over all the sour grapes in these past few threads as well

most people wouldn't stand a chance under the pressure of umping...I volunteered for a coach-pitch baseball tourney for my brother-in-law...I'm sure parents wanted to shoot me, tasr/feather me, but then again, step your bum on out there and do it better. I'd hate to be an ump, but I guess that's why I take score. It keeps my mouth shut (well, ask coach jeff about that one..wink, wink) which means the ump doesn't have to hear it about every strike-zone call.

and as for dressing in the parking lot...YOU try driving anywhere with a cup..not happenin...as far as being a flasher, well, there's always the bathroom I guess...lol

 

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Here is a thought that as parents we have tried to teach our pitching DD...Blue is calling your pitch, get a feel for what he is calling and adjust to your best ability while also keeping the batter off balance. Do not upset Blue for he/she is your best friend on the field regardless if you like what he is calling...tick him/her off and your strike zone maybe that pea you left on your dinner plate last night.. ?;D

 

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A youth minister at the church I work for told me he umpired girls softball (high school age) one summer because he thought it would be a good way to reach out to the parents of some of the kids. Needless to say he never did it again. Said all he succeeded in doing was making them all angry at him. LOL ;D

 

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try working for hours with underwire!!! lol
i do believe the cup said "dixie" on it anyhow....but come on!! change somewhere else.
i do like the old umpire that told us he would give us the low ones but not the high ones (or vice versa)...why not call THE strike zone.
thought they told them where it was?
and even though i sound all grouchy and all, i really don't say much to umpires since i volunteered ONCE to do it and hated every minute of it.
respect earned.
:

 

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get behind the plate ONCE and you'll never want to do it again...from taking foul balls off your body (yes, I know that's what the equipment is for)..to making those real tough decisions, to ringing up a brace-face girl who looks at you like you were there parents who just grounded them (speaking of, it's how my DD looks at me when she's in trouble)..lol to wearing that cumbersome cup (never thought about underwire..haha)
so whether the umps from travel who ump school ball and vice verse, my hat is off to you..maybe you guys should make your own category..general board, coach's corner and ump's utopia...I'll start the vote (you listening BEAR?)

 

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...then there's my personal favorite---the coffee can strike zone---death to the pitcher, that's SO wrong... >

 

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Thanks bretman for your reply! ?

Well I think there really does need to be some way to check that the umpires calling the game aren't Mr. Magoo. ?Some I have seen this year are darn close! ? ;D I agree they are calling both sides poorly, but that does not make it right.

 

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i loved magoo.
still hate underwire.

 

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There are posts on the first page again that just point to strange calls by the umpires. Why is it so hard for the right call to be made?


Well I guess that they got them right.

 

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Here is what I have noticed: The high school blues seem to be about the same as local travel ball blues in many cases. Where we see a jump in the quality is usually at ASA A or Gold nationals, but hey, I've seen bad ones everywhere including D1 college.

 

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In an area the size of the state of Ohio, there is just too much variation from region-to-region to make a blanket statement that "high school umps are worse than travel umps" or "ASA umps are better than NSA umps" or any similar comparisons.

The level of training, certification, experience and availability can vary greatly from one county to the next- and Ohio has 88 of 'em!

As for posts about strange umpire calls, you have to take those with a grain of salt. Many are judgement calls and we are only hearing one side of the story. And that side is being presented by an observer that obviously has a biased emotional stake in the outcome of the game. We don't know what the umpire saw.

In the majority of complaints I get about an official making a bad call, it turns out that the person complaining is wrong about the rule.

 

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plus, how good do you think they have to be to do a high school game? if the heriarchy of excellence trickles down from college ball (since there technically isnt a professional softball league) or maybe Olympics (they shut that baby down too!), then college umps are the best, high school is second tier (and just think about how many high schools there are in the entire country, much less Ohio), then probably travel ball--since I'm sure there's some crossover..I cant imagine an ump doing ASA travel games only or all PONY, etc...

therefore, that leaves junior high ball and rec leagues as the bottom of the barrel (and sometimes volunteers)...it's a thankless job, but we also need to realize why we feel the need to venomize the umps...

I'm sure this is the same in other sports like football or basketball...same probably goes for level of coaches and even players themselves.....
and just like in any semi-pro, pro, amateur, rec, rec all-star, travel league, NO ump is going to change their calls from fan reaction/bickering etc..

just a week ago, we had parents during a junior high game berate and curse at the ump until he literally threw them out. Bad calls notwithstanding, it only embarasses everyone and the calls wont suddenly switch...

there's probably umps reading our sniping and jotting down names..."you just wait until June" they might be saying..lol

 

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delcruz, i think i was at that game too!! the ump caused
a lot of frustration with his very small strike zone for junior high ball, caused the game to be called for darkness, oh what a game!! it seemed the ump should have called the game for darkness before he did, i don't know how the kids could see the ball!!!

 

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"see" the ball??? who needs to see the ball...so said MY high school coach.
back in the day when we had those giant WHITE softballs, we played in a snowstorm where the flakes were almost as big as the ball...but not once did either coach consider calling it... lol
then there was the time the actual tornado sirens were going off and we were being pelted with pebbles in the wind that we STILL stayed on that field.
Gosh i loved that coach....
;D

 

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cantcatchacold,

I really like your handle BTW... ;D When I played HS ball, my coach protest the cancellation of a game when lightning struck a tree behind centerfield. My coache's arguement...

"God had his chance and he missed. Let's play ball!" (I was in the batter's box and heard the whole thing)

Blues called the game. I guess they didn't want to give God another chance.