Sometimes a bad experience is your best teacher
Youth League Style

For the Rookie in All of Us!

by Richard B. Siegel

"Oh, they've only assigned you two games so far in the tournament?" I said. As we completed our pre-game discussion of the regularly reviewed items, such as fair/foul calls, the Infield Fly indicator, coverage on tag-ups, etc., I asked him, "Have you done much umpiring in this town?"

"No, this is my second game . . . ever." he explained. "But I know the rules very well!" he quickly added. Perhaps he was hoping to alleviate the anxiety I was trying to conceal.

"You mean you've only umpired one game before this one . . . in your life?" I asked, hoping for a better answer and trying to hide my astonishment. I'm thinking to myself, "This is a tournament and they send me a guy with just one other game as all the umpiring experience he has ever had?"

Roy continued. "Yeah! I figure I'll take all the safes and outs and you call everything else."

For a minute I panicked. I was almost ready to ask him to watch and I would do the game alone. But, everybody has got to start somewhere. But did it have to be in an All-Star tournament? Then I thought for another moment how I might be able to tell him everything I know about umpiring in about five minutes. Alas, I knew it was impossible. While the teams were taking their infield practice, I walked with him around the infield to discuss the "stations" field umpires use in a two-man system. I tried to be discreet so as not to let the coaches know that the base umpire didn't even know where to stand! And I knew, no matter how much I told him, there would be some important techniques I would forget to mention that would probably get us both into a pickle.

The first couple of innings went along too easily. I didn't want to say anything to him and jinx it. It was almost weird. After each half inning Roy would come down the line and we would quickly review a play or a call. I could see he was eager to learn and anxious to get it right. Then I began to see missing in him one most important fundamentals that I should have stressed at our pre-game conference. It became most obvious when slower batters grounded out. When the ball, thrown by the infielder, was still two feet away from being caught by the first baseman, Roy's fist was already pumping and he was already calling, "Out!" Roy was rushing his calls. Luckily, he hadn't been burned . . . yet.

At the end of the next half inning I tried to impress upon him the danger of this. I suggested to him some of the standard methods to help him slow down his calls. However, for any rookie umpire, habitually rushing the call is a tough reflex to overcome. On the first pitch in the next inning, the batter punched a sharp grounder to the shortstop. Now these boys were All-Stars, but they were also ten year-olds. Most of the time they were very good and made the predictable play. That predictability, however, was the culprit that was luring Roy into assuming the play was going to be made. The shortstop's throw looked accurate and the runner's speed added up to another easy put out. I was watching Roy closely now. As the ball was only two thirds of the way from the shortstop to first base, his fist was already going up. But the ball began to tail off to the side. Roy was still not in complete command of that reflex. Fortunately, Roy saw the first baseman lunging in his vain attempt at a heroic catch. For a brief embarrassing moment, Roy was standing there with his fist up in the air as the baseball sailed past the first baseman and bounced up against the dugout gate. Despite his Statue of Liberty pose, Roy managed the self control to pull his fist back and properly make the safe call.

After the play, we pointed at one another and exchanged some meaningful glances. He was silently saying, "Thanks for the warning. I'll keep trying." I was saying, "I told you. Slow it down and you won't get burned." I was feeling pretty good at that moment. I took some satisfaction that I had succeeded in teaching a valuable lesson to the newest member of the amateur umpiring brotherhood. I figured that I wouldn't have to worry about that problem again in this game. I was wrong.

On the very next pitch, the batter dropped a sacrifice bunt that only went a few feet and died in the soft dirt right in front of the plate. The alert catcher wanted the force out at second base. He rifled a bullet to second base, but the throw was a bit off-line. The shortstop, covering the bag, took the throw a few feet to the first base side of the bag. The runner saw he was a dead duck, since the ball was already there. So he slowed to a jog and continued the last few feet to second base, giving himself up, standing up. The alert shortstop, anxious to attempt a double play and save a few milliseconds, decided to put a quick tag on the approaching runner rather than retreat to step on second base. He took a couple steps down the line to meet the runner with the ball. Everyone watching smelled the easy tag about to happen. Unfortunately, so did Roy.

About eight feet down the line from second base, too far out to expect a runner to slide, the shortstop slapped a firm tag on the runner's left thigh. "Out!" Roy hollered, simultaneous with the tag. However, the baseball gods decided they needed to teach Roy another lesson that day. At the time the "out" call was leaving his lips, the ball popped out of the shortstop's glove due to the impact of the tag. Roy's back was to the plate, so I could not see his face. Nonetheless, I'm sure he had, as did I, a horrified look on his face as the ball dropped into the dirt. Sadly, the runner heard the "out" call too, but didn't know the ball was rolling on the ground. The runner did step on second base, but kept on going, believing he was out. "Safe!" Roy immediately hollered, hoping to correct his rushed out call. However, the poor runner was now five feet to the other side of second base. Sensing a reprieve, the runner did his best as he put on the brakes, spun around and dove back to the bag in a valiant effort to return. Since the runner had already touched the bag safely, having overrun it, he must now be tagged in order to be retired. The force was gone. Rule 7.08 (e).

The flustered shortstop wasn't about to give up either. He grabbed the ball. Seeing the runner off the bag, the shortstop dived at the bag, too, hoping, once again, to tag the runner before he could return to the base. And tag him he did! "Out!" Roy screamed as he witnessed the shortstop's mid-air, headlong lunge with the ball. The shortstop tagged the runner's hand just in time! But, as the shortstop's body returned to earth, the impact with the ground dislodged the ball from his grip and, once more, he lost control of the baseball. "Safe!" Roy shouted, but with not so much enthusiasm as before. Like two frenzied overturned turtles flat on the ground, the shortstop and runner each began to squirm, wriggle and twist themselves in order to, respectively, regain the ball and base. Was this play ever going to end?

"How much longer can this go on?" I asked myself. In the elapsed time of three seconds, Roy made two out calls and two safe calls on the same play, and it wasn't over yet! I began to tense up and prepare myself for the onslaught of complaints and objections the coaches were bound to heap on us. Finally, the runner tenaciously seized the bag.

Roy wasn't turning around. I think he was too humiliated to look at me. I jogged out to the second base area to stand with him and brace for the imminent invasion of the coaches. However, as I approached the scene of the crime, I saw the runner and the shortstop, who a moment before were in a heated battle for second base, lying on the ground laughing hysterically. The runner was hugging the bag like his favorite teddy bear. The shortstop, still on the ground, was rolling over still trying to find the ball through tears of laughter. It was no use. They both were overcome by uncontrollable laughter. I looked out at both teams' benches. All the coaches, as well, were laughing. The spectators from both sides, in an unusual moment of unison, began to applaud the two players. Obviously not for their keen skill, but for the great comedy they had just performed.

I put my hand on Roy's shoulder and whispered to him, "We got away with that one! It may not always turn out so happy." During the remainder of the game, Roy's calls slowed down considerably.

"Sometimes a bad experience is your best teacher." I told him after the game, as we discussed the play a little more. Roy might have thought I was trying just to make him feel better when I confessed to him, "If bad experiences are the best teachers for umpires, then I should have a Ph.D. in umpiring by now! No umpire wants to have difficulty out on the field. But after it's over, you take with you a lesson, so burned into your memory, that you know you're a better umpire for having endured it." Roy agreed that had he been a little more patient and let the play complete, he would have only had to make one call. He also realized that his premature calls contributed to the player's confusion.

Especially in that case, on a tag play on a moving or sliding runner, you have to wait to be sure the fielder maintains control of the ball. If Roy hadn't rushed that first out call, the runner would have stopped at second base and he would not have become confused. Conversely, if the shortstop had made a good tag and not dropped the ball the first time, the runner would still have been out even if Roy waited until he got to the bag. As long as he isn't attempting another play, asking the tagging fielder to "show me the ball" is a method that helps slow you down. Once a player is put out, he can never be made safe again. So as soon as you call a runner out, even if you have blown the call, it's better for the integrity of the game let the blown call stand. Don't make any more corrected calls. Rushed calls make you appear indecisive and less competent. As Roy learned the hard way: Always wait for the whole play to complete.