MSHAA Jr Varsity Umpires with the most “interesting” take on the rules I have ever seen!
My son recently got his first coaching job for the junior varsity baseball team at a nearby school and I did the official scorebook for him. For the record, my son played 10 years of Little League, four years of high school varsity baseball, was the first athlete EVER to be recruited to play college baseball out of his school and then played five years of semi pro. So we have encountered hundreds of umpires, but these guys had us shaking our heads. Some of their interpretation of the rules were as follows:
- The official game start time is when the home pitcher throws his first WARMUP pitch and was prepared to die on that hill. When I asked why because warmup tosses are not considered official pitches and don’t count against the pitcher’s pitch count and no other umpire has EVER counted warmup tosses as the official game start time. Is this true in any way, because the MSHAA rules don’t state that warmup tosses should be considered official.
2). If there is a runner on third base and the pitcher chooses to go out of the windup or the stretch it means that he cannot throw over to third base. Not talking about an obvious balk or the 45 degree angle that they have, just that they cannot throw over to third at all.
- Called at least two balks every inning on pitches and pitching motions and demanded to talk to the pitchers between innings to “educate” them. My son finally told him that HE was a pitcher who played varsity, college and semi pro and didn’t need coaching assistance from the umpires.
4). I hesitate to mention this one, because I understand that the strike zone is umpire discretion, but after my son told him to leave his pitchers alone, balls that bounced on the chalk on the outside of the batters box BEHIND the batters started being called strikes against our batters.
My son just requested that our AD NEVER hire these two guys again, but do these rule interpretations have any validity?
THANK TO ALL UMPIRES FOR BEING THERE FOR OUR KIDS!!! We (mostly 😝) appreciate you!
ETA: sorry for the letter mixup in the title. It should say MHSAA for Michigan High School Athletic Association. Oops