Sometimes when things are gone about the right way then good things will eventually happen. Mr. Moats has called Papa back and we had a very long discussion concerning the issues that have been raised on this forum. Mr. Moats agreed that there were problems that he fully intended on addressing prior to next years Slugfest.
In years past without this forum all we would have had was the complaints and could bet that the complaints would not be addressed. Since I have been on this forum I have never seen one issue attract so many reads in such a short period of time. The complaints have been heard and the complaints in my opinion will be addressed and we can all expect a much better ran tournament with much more communication next year.
I thank Mr. Moats very much and feel sure that we can expect better next year and I look forward to coming back. Most of the time when something like this happens all any of us want is to know that it will not happen again and I don't think it will.
Up and In The best umps are calling 12yr old ball right now if not doing a high school game. Sure there is 13 & 14 year old baseball but at this time of year the best games are 11 & 12's. That would be great if a TD could tell a park which umpire association to use but that would be a shock to me.
quote: If your going to complain about that you have to say the same is true for east cobb. I saw a coach get tossed at wooden bat last year and tell the ump he would never get a job inside that fence again. I think a lot of directors enter their own tourneys as they may be fundraisers for that program etc. I know it was a usssa nit but also a charity event. Does not mean you should get bad umps. Have any winning teams complained yet?
MichaelP I agree that some suggestions should be made to TD's when scheduling umpires. I have multiple children playing travel ball and do not have a preference. If the Umpires that were at Central Park this weekend (No matter what Organization)are the best around then we all are in trouble! It was that bad!
We played at Midway in the 14AA division and had no umpire complaints. Of course there were 1-2 calls that could have gone either way, but our overall experience was good. The strike zone was consistent for both teams in all of our games. It seems there was inconsistency tourney-wide in the umpires attitude & experience level and appears the worst experiences were at Central Park. I've hosted many tournaments and, as a director, the umpires can make or break your event. Everyone wants quality umpires and it's up to the organization to weed out the ones that are not up to par. Hopefully the feedback on this forum will help in this process. I want to thank Bill Moats for stepping up and taking on the Slugfest!! Many of you may or may not know this but Bill stepped up to be overall TD for 3 years (now the next 2). As many have stated this is for a very good cause and you can play outstanding competition in your own classification locally. As with everything Bill does, he is a perfectionist. He will make sure these concerns are addressed and corrected for next year.
Baseball Papa, you played in one of our events last year and we loved the music too!! I don't recall it being too loud as to be a distraction to anyone else either. That would be my only concern as TD is if it was a distraction for a game on another field.
OK fact is we played horrible and got our buts kicked. Definitely humble pie for us but we have had some great practices this week to work on the issues we had. So all in all it was a good thing for us. But I have to tell you that the umpires were absolutely horrible in this tournament. In our first game we had an umpire who called a balk on us in the first inning for the pitcher gripping a ball in his glove and barley moving his glove and then the same umpire didn’t call a balk on a pitcher who came to a set position twice. Then on the very next play that pitcher stepped toward first and didn’t throw the ball. We actually had to walk on the field and say by rule isn’t that a balk and then he said yeah and moved the kids up. In that same game a wild pitch got by the catcher and then after the catcher threw the ball back the umpire looked at the batter and said go to first. The kid was like "why"? and the ump said because it hit you. The ball wasn’t even close to the kid. In our next game, on a steal of second the kid slid into second and his knee popped up from the foot hitting the bag and then the fielder tagged his knee and he called him out. The funny thing was on that play the infielder yelled he was stealing and the pitcher never even brought his hands together, it’s like once he heard he was stealing he just threw the ball and the ump didn’t call it a balk and called a completely save runner out. We were all amazed. In the same game the third baseman was lining up in foul territory every single time a runner was on third base. We asked the ump to take a look and he said he wasn’t going to call that. We are 13U. Not 10 yr olds. After the inning we asked him, if instead of completely ignoring a rule could you at least educate the player or the team so that when they got a good ump they wouldn’t have to give up a run for something stupid like that. In our last game the strike zone was absolutely horrible. I mean how can the same ump call a pitch at your chin and at the middle of you shins a strike in the same at bat. We had a pitcher that was throwing a rainbow curve ball that was breaking so late that it was at our chins when it crossed the front of the plate and this dude called it a strike almost every single time. The umpire in the field was rolling his eyes after several of the home plate umpires calls. It got to the point where our parents were actually moaning and groaning about calls he was calling strikes against the other team. I watched another game where you couldn’t see the plate for about 3 innings because he didn’t have anything clean the plate with or he simply didn’t want to bend over, finally a catcher did it for the pitcher. In the same game the bases were the kind that moved when you slide into them and after a slide into second the base was off to the side and turned so that it was parallel with home plate and the ump just looked at it and let it go. The umpires certainly didn’t have anything to do with how we played but it was crazy how many poor examples of umpiring I saw at central field during that tournament. I have to say that I did watch a game at Shawnee Mountain and saw no bad calls and what appeared to be good umpiring.
ATURNER: I do not believe the music was loud enough to bother anyone on the other field but it apparently was cause of some concern and the game on the other field was extremely tight and hard fought and this probably increased the anxiety level. I want everyone to know that if the Bandits music ever bothers you on another field that if you will let us know we will turn it down or turn if off until you finish playing.But again just ask politely as we would give you the same courtesy if we had a problem with something you were doing.
SLUGFEST CENTRAL PARK UMPIRES
Posted - 03/09/2010 : 11:46:49
