ontheblack wrote:I agree with this, but at least where I am in So Cal, I have seen the same umpires work ASA rec, HS and various travel tournaments (ASA and TCS) and I frequently see all of the above miscues. Using hand gestures to indicate why the pitch wasnt a strike was something I dealt with last week. I have also seen it at ASA Nats where the blues are there from all over the country, so I guess my question is, who trains these folks?
You actually see more of this in SP, but training aside, many umpires get into real bad habits working local games. Again, more often in SP, but have seen it in FP, an umpire who works by the given mechanics and rules are often ridiculed for doing so.
About 8 years ago, an umpire, from SoCal as a matter of fact, was in the umpire locker room at the HOF Stadium (room doubled as media center for NCAA tournaments at that time) and the UIC asked why he did something completely off-book mechanic-wise and before he could finish, "that's the way they do it at home" he was getting reamed for not doing it properly.
At an ASA 16U A (territory) NC a few years back, I had an umpire assigned to the tournament that set up approx. 4-6' behind the catcher and always in the RH batter slot on every pitch regardless of the batter's box being used. He and his friends swore he worked HS ball and ASA tournaments, but here he was at a NC and didn't know that the slot changed with the batter. After his first game, he didn't see a catcher's back the rest of the tournament.
In the same tournament, a "local" umpire ruled an overthrow a dead ball when it bounced off the front façade of a dugout. I wasn't called to the field until an inning or so later which is obviously too late for a protest. I asked the people complaining if the umpire crew covered that in ground rules and the three coaches all agreed it was covered. After the game I asked the umpire why he would enforce such an inappropriate ground rule especially when crews were told how to address the fields in pre-game. His response was, "well, a few years ago before they put fronts on the dugout and the ball went into the dugout, we ruled it dead. Didn't think that would change just because they put up a wall to stop the ball from going in there." Huh? Say what? I actually had to ask him to repeat himself because I didn't believe I was told such a story.
It was an absolutely terrible ground rule and call. The only thing that saved the game from falling into chaos was the fact that the umpire covered it in the ground rules. If the coaches raised their hands at that point, it could have been avoided.
Neither umpire saw games on Sunday and it wasn't because they were that bad, but just were not properly trained to work that level of ball and it wasn't fair to the teams. Point being is that there are some umpires that get to work national tournament level play that just don't have the proper training. But it really isn't their fault as they were assigned by a commissioner without any references from the UIC and hadn't been to a national school.
All that said, I have no doubt you see umpires doing what they are trained not to do, cannot do anything about that, some people are just going to do whatever they want. The numbers are in their favor to work since so many umpires actually turn down working national tournaments and that can be very disappointing.
