When does an umpire need to retire?

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You know, maybe I just need to vent, but when an umpire is literally 86 years old, can only ump behind the plate because he can't run the field, has cataracts, yells at the players, and has to call time out at least 4 times during the game to ask his field umpire what the pitch count is, does anyone else here think it's time to retire?


And we had him ALL day, because we were on the same diamond all day, and this umpire never switched fields either.

It was a very LONG DAY.

 

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?What tournament and where?

 

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You think thats bad!! What about the ump that brings his oxgen tank to the field and sets it on the fence then tells the parents "If you see me falling please run and give me my tank" . I know you love the game but enough is enough!!!!!!!

 

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Gannon, your kidding right??

 

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No I was not kiddin!!!

 

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UncleD
Columbus NSA fastpitch invitational this weekend

 

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I agree with softballmom34. Terrible strike zones, calls at the plate and bases. Continued delay of game figuring out something that I finally quit trying to figure out why the umpires were wasting 15 to 20 minutes of each game conversing over I have no clue what.

We are on a clock, pitchers are working hard on all teams to hit corners (Not throw the ball down the middle) (Even had umps not see the batter swing when throwing down the middle), players are making great plays on all teams. I saw very few rewards for their efforts. I applaude great plays and pitches for every team not just my own and to see these taken away from the hard working young ladies is terrible.

Jeff Klopfer
Classics 12U

 

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lol i once had an umpire who forgot how many outs there were and we had 2 get an extra one

 

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Saw one in Columbus that kept forgetting to put on his face mask, it might be time for him.

 

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And these umps drive a vehicle to? Now thats scary............

 

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We had an umpire @ our first Nationals @ 10u losecount, we had gotten 3 strikes making the final out, the batter returned to dug out, the fielders where going to dug out and Umpire decided there where only 2 stirkes even thought the other teams parents literally were packing up their stuff that the girls were prepairing to line up and shake.....he made the game continue and the pitcher wound up giving up a walk on the same player she had just struck out and that walked in a run forcing a tie.....we ended up losing the game we had actually won .....what a way to break the hearts of a bunch of 10 year olds, took 5th @ National that year and thankfully got a trophy,LOL. Went to file protest and were told it would be $75....what a crock We knew we were in trouble we saw the plate ump was about 80 y/o with coke bottle glasses....the field umpire said he wasn't really paying attention so would comment on count, but both teams knew the true count.....

 

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we had an umpire shrug his shoulders at the home plate ump, who then shrugged his shoulders back at him. ?niether one of them knew what to call. ?The homeplate ump asked just to see the ball and called our girl out. ?cost us two runs. ?we lost by one.

 

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We had one Sat. that said our batter did not try to get out of the way of a pitch that bounced at her ankles on the way in and she hopped to try to avoid it.
Same guy call out a runner at the plate who should have slid but didn't but also did not make contact with the catcher reached her toe to the plate and was still called out even though it wasn't a force. The scary part is if she would have slid she would have creamed the girl for blocking the plate.
cost us big time.

 

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We had the same ump also, but I saw bad calls all day on nearly every diamond and game that I watched, not just by the old guy. It wasn't until the championship game that I thought I finally saw the best 2 guys there.

 

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Years ago had an umpire yell "infield fly" with only a runner on 3rd and 2 outs...still scratchin our heads over that one!

 

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I know there some umpires out there that should retire,as an umpire and as a coach i too scratch my head and get frustrated with some of the older umpires some are just losing there edge.I always try to call the best game i can.remember we are human and make mistakes just like coaches and players.but in situation were losing stike count if my partner doesn"t have the count i alway revert back home score book
and then make sure the visting team has the same count. 95% of the time it is usually accurate.As a umpire if your just doing it for the money and not for the kids then you need too GIE IT UP!!!!!!

 

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pitcherdadof2 you sound like you make a good effort to call the best game you can. we had a couple of umpires this weekend that had no idea what the strike zone should be. i think they may have been accustomed to umping slow pitch games. i understand your point about umps being only human and not perfect and i always give them credit for at least trying to give a good performance for their pay but sometimes i wonder how an ump can consistantly not call pitches strikes that are clearly in the strike zone. part of the problem is that parents and coaches give umpires such a hard time that many people who would be good umpires are smart enough to say who needs it .

 

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With regards to the NSA tournament last weekend at Berliner, I found out something this spring about becoming an NSA umpire.

I was looking into getting registered with NSA as an umpire, with the thought that I might do some of their tournaments this year. What I found out was that to become an NSA umpire all I had to do was pay a $35 registration fee! No training, no tests, no minimum level of ability required.

My personal experience with NSA umpiring, most of which has come through my association with the Columbus Recs & Parks adult slow pitch leagues, has not been a good one. But that might be the exception to the rule. The city of Columbus supplies umpires for approximately 5000 games each year and I'm sure that getting umpires to cover all those games is a tough job. That might be a case of a "warm body" being the best they can find.

My suspicion is that most of the "good" NSA umpires have received their training through ASA or NFHS. If there are any NSA umpires out there, I would love to hear what your background is and what specific training NSA offers.

 

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Don't know her background (I can guess at few things though), but the plate umpire I had for my last two games Sunday at Berliner was probably the best umpire I've ever had (her partner wasn't too bad either). Consistant, knowledgable, approachable, confident, and always seemed to be in the right position to make the call.

 

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Bear,
I think I know who you are talking about, and she is excellent. ?She was actually the field umpire during one of the games that we had our senior umpire, and she was out there changing her clicker every other batter. ?She would see what she thought was a strike and automatically click, then he'd call "ball", and she's grin, and change her clicker. ?Our chort stop kept turning around looking at her, so when she came in, we asked her why. ?She said the field umpire kept saying things like "ball?" ?and "what the heck?", and "Oh my gosh". ?We were cracking up.
At that point all we could do was laugh. ?The coach wasn't laughing however.
There was a play where there was a force at home. ?The runner from third was put out on the force, and as she came in, she didn't slide (not really completely necessary in that particular situation), but she did bump our catcher a little. ?Nothing blatant- just bumped shoulders. ?The umpire in question called her out. ?Then he called time- the play possibly not over yet either. ?He called the runner and the opposing 3rd base coach over and wanted to explain WHY she was out! ?He said that she was actually safe at home, since the catcher didn't tag her in time, but since she "PLOWED" (his words, not mine) the catcher over (she never fell), he felt she should have slid. ?Our coach (my husband), went out and said, "excuse me sir, but that was a force." and the ump was like, "oh, yeah, well, I know that, I was just explaining to her... blah blah blah"

We will always run into questionable umpiring, and there will always be inconsistent ones, and we'll always be disagreeing with them.

I am very grateful for the ones who try their best and actually care about the game and want to be as fair as possible. ?But after the pathetic display this weekend, we were very disappointed. ?We spoke with the "Head Umpire" ??
who actually scheduled the umpires for that weekend's tournament, and although compassionate, he did keep making excuses for the guy and saying that we'll see inconsistent umpires everywhere we go. ?I can say that even the teams who were wimming the games were very unhappy about his performance. ?It was equally poor and inconsistent the entire time.

Now, on to the next tourney, and pray we have someone under 85! ?