I awoke Monday to find that it had rained. Once again, I had the second and fourth games.
The 11:00 game between Maryland and New York was about 15 minutes late in getting started – the grounds crew had needed some extra time to get the field ready before the teams could take infield. Doc wasn’t in attendance at game time – he had picked up some kind of bug and was trying to sleep it off.
HP – Dena
1B – Colin
2B – Bill
3B – Paul
Maryland lost 7-0, and was eliminated.
The 1:30 game was Massachusetts vs. Maine – again, both teams already had one loss.
HP – Rich
1B – Bethany
2B – Paul
3B – Me
This was a very quiet game for me. Aside from a few fair/foul calls on balls bounding or sailing past me, there wasn’t much action at third base.
Massachusetts won the game 7-2, eliminating Maine.
The 4:00 game pitted Pennsylvania against Rhode Island, with both teams undefeated.
HP – Steve
1B – Bill
2B – Dena
3B – Colin
Rhode Island won 5-1, moving Pennsylvania to the lower bracket.
The 7:00 game was Connecticut vs. Delaware – my second plate game. Fortunately, Doc had recovered enough by this point to be at the scorer’s table. It’s not always comfortable knowing that his eagle eye is evaluating you, but you know when he’s there that he’s got your back of anything unusual happens. (Not to imply in any way that the rest of the staff does not have our backs 100%.)
HP – Me
1B – Steve
2B – Bethany
3B – Rich
Being that Connecticut is the “local” team, there was a fair crowd for the game. This turned into a fairly contentious game, with a number of very close plays. Both managers were out several times questioning calls.
I had a force play at home in which the catcher only got the plate with the absolute tip of her toe. Enough for the out, but Delaware didn’t think she had the plate.
Later in the game, there was a play that I didn’t handle correctly. A runner was coming home from third. The catcher received the ball and stepped up the line a bit to (legally) block off the plate. The runner slid in, and the slide knocked the ball out of the catcher’s glove and underneath her. The runner, however, hadn’t yet reached the plate. As the catcher is fumbling to retrieve the ball, the runner was now trying to get around her to get to the plate. This is where I messed up – since the catcher no longer was in possession of the ball, I should have had an obstruction call. My mind was thinking “train wreck,” however. Fortunately, the runner eventually (probably 1-2 seconds, but it felt like hours) touched the plate before the catcher could corral the ball, so we got the correct outcome (runner safe) even if for the wrong reason.
There was one more controversial play – on a low looper in front of the infielders, the shortstop came in low to try to catch the ball. She gloved it right near the ground, but I had seen the ball rebound up into the pocket of her glove, and so ruled “no catch.” She made no attempt to throw to first, but instead held her glove up selling the “catch.” At this point, knowing that I had been straight-lined, I began to doubt whether the ball had come up off the ground or whether it had come up off the fingers of her glove, so I called the crew together, since the first and third base umpires might have had a better angle on the play. After getting input from all three partners, I concluded that the player had caught the ball, and so reversed my call to a “catch.” The offensive manager wasn’t terribly happy, but we stuck with that call and played on. If we’d been in Williamsport, I would have loved to have instant replay available on that one just to be certain.
Connecticut tied the game up 4-4, and it honestly looked like we were going into extra innings, but in the bottom of the 6th, Delaware pushed across a run to win 5-4.
After the game I had to do some laundry at the hotel. Doc’s wife, bless her a thousand times, volunteers to wash everybody’s uniform shirts, undershirts and uniform pants every single night so you start out with squeaky clean uniforms each morning. I’d accumulated enough stank on “other stuff” however to need to do some of my own. If you ever have the opportunity to work one of these tournaments, bring as many undergarments as you can, because you’re going to sweat through them in a hurry.
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