A funny "doesn't know the rules" situation

The number of umpires who don't know the basic rules astounds me (sorry, good umps out there!).

This week my team (away team) had a big 5th inning, went up 12-3. We held them in the bottom of the 5th, and then in the 6th we scored a run. As soon as the run scored, the HP umpire stopped the game, said "that's 10 runs" and was ready to call the girls off the field.

The coach of the other team tried to explain to him that, no, the visiting team doesn't just win as soon as they go up by 10 after 5. The home team gets their at bat. Of course she's right, but I didn't say a lot since it was her beef. I just sort of positioned my body near hers to show I was not on board with his interpretation of a rule that I thought everybody understood.

He was adamant that she was wrong (she cracked me up by saying, "OK, well we're still playing.") and the instant a team goes up by 10 runs, the game is over, but he let us finish out the inning. After the game, he comes over to "explain the rule" to me. I did a lot of nodding and smiling and silently hoping he never umps another one of my games.

Yes any umpire should know the home team always gets a last at bat, that is my biggest gripe with tournaments that have drop dead time limits with no reversion to last complete inning if home team has not batte.

Here is a coach that doesn't know the rule story. High school game, 15 after 4 run rule. At end of 4th inning score is 4-11, home team comes out does their cheer and lines up for handshakes. I approach coach and ask what he is doing, he tells me game is over. I asked him why he through the game was over, he said it's 15 after 4. I said coach you are not up by 15 runs. He said no, the score is 4-11, that's 15 runs game is over.

I suppose I should have said here's your sign coach.

I would like to think that I would assist the other coach in correcting the umpire in the OP's scenario.

Coach JD,

It sounds like you have multiple weak umpires doing your games. The person you need to speak to is the assignor. Let him know when someone working your games is making mistakes on the rules. Those are things they should know.

Our area travel umpires, with the exception of having wide-ranging and constantly moving strike zones, are pretty good, i.e., they are rules-knowledgeable.

Our middle school umps on the other hand are horrific. 2nd and 3rd, 2 out the other day we are on defense, grounder to short, our SS while bent over fielding the ball gets blasted into by the runner from 2B. Still tries to get the out at 1, doesn't play ends with no call, run in, and runners on 1B and 3B. Our coach says hey what about the interference? 5 second delay, field ump raises a fist says runner out. Opposing coach asks if run still counts because "there wasn't an out at first". Nevermind the runner from 3B was still 40 feet from home when the SS got run into. After debate, HP umpire says yeah we will count it. I thought our coach was going to lose her mind.

Later in the game opposing BR runs into F1 trying to catch popup on 1B line as ball bounces off her glove. No call again.

The problem around our way is that there simply aren't enough certified umps to go around, our AD says you take what you can get.

Sparky Guy said:

Coach JD,

It sounds like you have multiple weak umpires doing your games. The person you need to speak to is the assignor. Let him know when someone working your games is making mistakes on the rules. Those are things they should know.

Click to expand...

Both games I've discussed the umps on here were road games, so I had nothing to do with their assignments.

In our home games, we've had I believe 6 different umpires so far this year, and I haven't had any issues. Maybe a disagreement on a judgment call here or there, but nothing worth even mentioning.

I forgot to mention that in the same game, there was a close play at first. The base umpire called the girl out. For some reason, the plate umpire called her safe until it was brought to his attention that the umpire whose job it was to make that call said she was out. They briefly discussed, and he deferred to the out call.

Umpiring is a tough job for sure. I suppose I should be thankful there are people there to do it so we can play the games.

I can add to this. We had one umpire, last night. We are 14u rec. He was obviously baseball.
He starts asking me, "Eight pitches between innings?" No, 5 or 1 minute.
Then "One hour and 45 minute games?" No. One hour and thirty minutes.
He had no idea what the circle was.

The umpires in our neighborhood, whether travel (all sanctions except NSA) or HS are pretty impressive. Other than a few objectionable judgment calls, they are very rules knowledgeable.

Comp said:

Yes any umpire should know the home team always gets a last at bat, that is my biggest gripe with tournaments that have drop dead time limits with no reversion to last complete inning if home team has not batte.

Here is a coach that doesn't know the rule story. High school game, 15 after 4 run rule. At end of 4th inning score is 4-11, home team comes out does their cheer and lines up for handshakes. I approach coach and ask what he is doing, he tells me game is over. I asked him why he through the game was over, he said it's 15 after 4. I said coach you are not up by 15 runs. He said no, the score is 4-11, that's 15 runs game is over.

I suppose I should have said here's your sign coach.

Click to expand...

So a 7-7 game is in sudden death in the 5th. LOL

Comp said:

Yes any umpire should know the home team always gets a last at bat, that is my biggest gripe with tournaments that have drop dead time limits with no reversion to last complete inning if home team has not batte.

Here is a coach that doesn't know the rule story. High school game, 15 after 4 run rule. At end of 4th inning score is 4-11, home team comes out does their cheer and lines up for handshakes. I approach coach and ask what he is doing, he tells me game is over. I asked him why he through the game was over, he said it's 15 after 4. I said coach you are not up by 15 runs. He said no, the score is 4-11, that's 15 runs game is over.

I suppose I should have said here's your sign coach.

Click to expand...

How often do you find that coaches think the DP/Flex rule means you get 10 hitters in the lineup? The opposing coach did that in our first game of the year, but we were up 23-0 when that 10th spot came up so I (and the umpire) just let it go. I kinda felt like I should've made a bigger point of it so the coach knows she got the rule wrong for the future, even though I didn't care another kid got an at bat in the game.