First inning and close play at third base. Field umpire calls the runner out. Third base coach not happy with the call but he is not going crazy. Play is stopped. No other runners on base. Third base coach calls for "time out" to the field umpire who refuses. The coach yells I can call time out and discuss the play. Field umpire says no you can't. Third base coach goes to home plate umpire to ask for his help and he tells him the field umpire told him he couldn't call time out about that play and then proceeded to throw the coach out. Then the coach went crazy.

My question is this: Is there a rule where an umpire can refuse a time out for the coach to address the umpire(s)? This was a 12U travel league playing High school rules. However, we play different rules(high school, USSSA, MLB) based on the tournament.

Players and coaches may request a time out. Only umpires can call time. Your coach is a two bit coach. There are a lot of them at the lower age groups of travel ball. He showed up the field umpire by going to the home plate umpire. He should have been tossed. What did the coach think he was going to do? Discuss the field umpires judgement? Had the coach asked the field umpire to ask the home plate umpire for help (had angle been an issue) he might have been around for the end of the game. Note: I'm a coach, not an umpire.

Seems to me one of two things going on from an Umpire's perspective:
1) Coach has been needling the field umpire and/or plate umpire. FU decides he's not going to hear from the coach and refuses the timeout. From there, I can absolutely see the PU tossing him for trying to showup the FU.
2) FU is a rookie or ump with an attitude. If either is the case he handled it badly. Should have allowed coach to vent and then got him back to the box.

Either way is a bad situation. I have to agree with previous posting from RJM about travel coaches at the lower levels. Personally, I try and stay FAR FAR away from those games. They're nothing but trouble.

therefump

How can you assume what you are assuming?


Is this more umpire thinking?

How can you assume it's a 2 bit coach?

This thing escalated because the BU's refusal to grant time. I don't know if there were any issues prior but it is only the first inning. Why not grant time, let him "discuss" and go from there. Maybe he still gets himself thrown out. If he does then he is the bad guy. In the OP, the Umpires comes off as arrogant and will have problems for the rest of the game

If an umpire won't talk with a coach there's usually a history with the coach. Based on the coach going over the FU's head to talk to the HPU it's not hard to figure. A lot of younger age coaches don't understand protocol.

Just for the record. A good umpire (I like to think I am) would NEVER carry history with him to a new game. Granted, we may groan to ourselves or our partner prior to the game we should not allow it to show.

If it's the first inning, I would call time and briefly discuss "what I've got". No problem there. As a matter of fact, my pregame discussion includes the statement "Coach, if you've got a question or an issue, come out and I'll tell you what I"VE got. You may not agree but we can talk". However, I'm not going to allow a coach to question everything.

As far as a base coach, I shouldn't be talking with him (an assistant) but I'll give some leeway.

Lastly, my partner and I will always get each other's back. He would eject the idiot for showing me up. I agree that the younger coaches don't understand protocol, hence, the pregame talk. I'm not an ejectionist. You eject yourself. Out of 250+ games last year I had 5 ejections. 2 in the same inning.I have about another 4 I gave too much rope but that's water over the ****.

The history may be from earlier in the game. Getting back to the younger coaches, some of them are straight out of LL without a real baseball background. They see umpires as an obstacle. They don't understand they will see the same umpires repeatedly and need to have a positive relationship with them.

For the few umpires I don't care for (lazy/inconsistant/don't know the rules), even though I'm cool to them, I'm polite. I have a good relationship with the good ones. They make mistakes too. But I know they understand the rules and they're working hard. And, don't tell anyone, but I've made a few coaching mistakes in my career.

quote:

Originally posted by dblinkh1:


My question is this: Is there a rule where an umpire can refuse a time out for the coach to address the umpire(s)? This was a 12U travel league playing High school rules. However, we play different rules(high school, USSSA, MLB) based on the tournament.

Yes, an umpire can decide not to grant a request for a time out. Regardless of the reason, the coach was bush to go to his partner. That speaks much about his attitude and possibly the reason he didn't get his time out to argue a judgement call.