Just a couple of thoughts as my coffee brews this morning.
- Why does Major League Baseball expect that all of their umpires will be at least competent at all four primary umpire positions? First base is a very different skill set than calling the plate, and second base has a different set of expectations and positioning than third base. Hockey, soccer, football all expect their highest end officials to specialize in particular positions and therefore hone their vision and expectations on a much smaller category of interactions. I know for soccer, the split between the assistant referee (flags) and center referee (whistle) happens as the official is working on their national badge/starting to do pro games where the players actually make enough to stay above poverty line. Soccer referees, at the highest levels, have a very different personality profile than their assistants as the centers/whistles tend to be much more comfortable with gray areas than the assistant referees who have a clear task (determine offside) as their primary mandate.
- I used up my annual quota of red cards this week. Two for DOGSO, one of which was extremely smart, the other stupid, one serious foul play, and a pair of violent conducts. The smart DOGSO had the player’s team up 2-1 with 3 minutes left and the opposing team had a beautiful corner kick enter the box. An attacker rifled a shot heading back post upper corner, until the defender leaped up caught the ball, hit the ground as I was hitting the whistle. The offender rolled the ball to me, and started jogging off the field. The attackers scored on the PK. It was a smart DOGSO as it reduced the goal probability from 100% to 70%. The offending team scored in overtime for the win.
- This fall is the first soccer season in a very long time where the money I make is not needed money, it is family extra money. That is changing how I schedule. I am learning that I can say no to really bad games that don’t pay all that well and the only thing I get out of the game is a check and a headache. I turned down some bad games this weekend so I could take my daughter to a birthday party. That was a much better use of my time.
- Game gearing is always a challenge on two fronts. The first is gearing down from doing high level games to youth games. A moment of contact in a college game that is “trifling” could legitimately be a cautionable offense at mediocre U-14. More importantly, the full array of tools in a referee’s bag aren’t available if the players and coaches don’t understand what you are trying to do. I got caught on this yesterday. I was reffing a U-14 match between two mediocre teams who were coached by someone’s Dad. I was trying to use a slow whistle to see if people could work through a foul, I was trying to man manage, I was trying to pro-actively referee on aerial challenges. The players had no clue what I was doing, and they started whacking each other as soon as they got touched instead of working for advantage. It took me about 20 minutes to realize that I was there to babysit and not to faciliate a safe, fair display of atheletic skill.
raven
You can’t work behind the plate for 162 games. You also didn’t mention basketball and working one of the two or three positions is very different.
magurakurin
I wasn’t aware the baseball has some sort of officiating crisis? I’m not up to speed on every thing, but if there isn’t some sort of problem with officiating, then maybe the league’s requirement is working? If any sport needs to re-examine it’s officiating, that sport would be soccer. In my opinion of course.
jon
Baseball umpires have a tendency to get hit by balls, making their easy replacement important when a game needs to continue and some guy deciding fair or foul or out or safe just got whacked in the head. That doesn’t happen often in other sports, though football refs are considered part of the field. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes they get replaced or moved because of a good timing route gone bad. At least that’s what all the players would say.
jon
@magurakurin: Soccer could use another set of eyes on the field, definitely.
As for the diving, I say put a timer on the sideline and for each second the player stopped play, he gets to wait on the side after he’s well enough to return. Want to slow the game down? Okay, but you’ll be short for a bit. Had a legitimate injury? Well, this gives the folks on the side more time to fix you. Outside the field of play. And if they can’t wait, they can make a substitute.
cdmarine
NFL crews typically have seven people. MLB crews have four. I think it’s way more important for MLB umps to be able to cover each other’s position than it is in the NFL. Not sure about other sports, but I’m guessing it’s similar. Also, the point above is right: some positions are just tougher and more prone to injury than others (whether it’s bad knees or a fastball to the nuts), so it makes more sense to be able to rotate in and out of them.
big ole hound
DOGSO??
raven
@magurakurin: Most officiating is in crisis. I ran municipal recreational sports programs for years and worked with local officiating organizations. I also officiated high school b-ball for a decade.People are fucking morons when it comes to sports and it’s harder and harder to get good people to do it. If they are doing it for the dough they are in ot for the wrong reason.
chopper
@big ole hound:
Deny an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
currants
@big ole hound: Deny an Obvious Goal-Scoring Opportunity.
ETA what chopper says.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
I don’t know why, (well i do, it’s because your posts on HC are always so measured and informed) but I’m always surprised when you indicate you are young, and just starting your career.
Tokyokie
As someone mentioned earlier, different umpiring positions require different skill sets, but they present different challenges in terms of physical activity. Umpiring home plate is more physically demanding, and the umpire is more likely to get dinged by foul balls, so letting him do third base the next night (which really doesn’t require much moving about or making a whole lot of calls) gives him a bit of a break, especially considering the season runs 162 games. Furthermore, sometimes circumstances prevent the umpire assigned to a base from being able to clearly see the play, and one of the other umpires viewing it from a different angle may be better positioned to make the call, but knowing about how to work that position would be helpful.
So Richard, did you watch the Oklahoma-West Viriginia game Saturday night. Late in the first half, the head linesman’s ankle got rolled under an offensive lineman, and he had to leave the game. (He might have fractured it, but it was at least sprained.) But the Big 12 apparently is one of the few conferences that assigns a substitute ref to each game, and that guy came in and finished the game. Seems like a good idea.
patrick II
I don’t watch much soccer, but like many Americans, I watched some World Cup this past summer. At the top level, soccer has to be the worst officiated game there is. There is so much off of the ball fouling, and egregrious flopping it is an embarrassment. Basketball, which I think is the most similar of the major sports to soccer to referee, does a much better job. They have three refs who’s duties rotate and are more a shared responsibility as the ball moves up and down the court.
Using soccer refereeing as an example for other sports to emulate seems to be a bad idea.
Rommie
Baseball umps don’t have to move like football, soccer, hockey refs, so I think that it’s easier to learn four bases. The wear and tear on a home plate ump is valid, so rotating makes sense that way as well. Basketball refs have to move, but they are also more generic in their duties.
There is also the issue of bias against a team. If, in Game 1 of a series, the home plate ump tosses a player/manager because of their complaints about the strike zone, it’s easier that he’s moved to 3rd base the next game and not the focus with being behind the plate again.
It’s also easier to replace/promote new umpires if they don’t have to train for one base. Moar jerbs for everyone! (I suspect it’s the primary reason)
MobiusKlein
As an observer of youth soccer (G U13), how can I tell the difference between legitimate jostling for the ball and mediocre bullying?
I ask, since my daughter’s team is a perennial winner, and seem to be good at controlling the ball, dominating possession. They seem to play clean & hard, but I am not the expert.
SRW1
You mean the ‘smart’ penalty was like the goalie action by Luis Suarez in the 2010 WC quarterfinal between Uruquay and Ghana at the end of extra time? Must confess that I don’t like that kind of ‘smart’, which is why I’ll never be a fan of Suarez quite apart from his propensity for biting other players.
Helmut Monotreme
This is off topic, but may be of interest:
‘Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia’ plans to confront Scott Walker recall petition signers at polls
ThresherK
@SRW1: Yep. That kind of foul will be committed more simply because the remedy isn’t sufficient. At what point will refs be allowed to award the fucking goal?
And I’m curious: What age group was that game?
PS Just finished reading “Eight World Cups” by NYT sports columnist Peter Vecsey. Well worth the time, especially for his first-hand accounts of the “old days” when ESPN didn’t bring me every game.
Rex Tremendae
If nothing else, I think it would be boring as hell being a 3rd base umpire all the time. The Union wouldn’t allow it.
Joel
The answer to #1 is fatigue
Joel
@raven: Why is 74-year old Dick Bavetta still refereeing basketball games?
Richard Mayhew
@big ole hound: Denying Obvious Goal Scoring Opportunity (dogso)
Richard Mayhew
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): I would say that I am starting my mid-career phase.
Richard Mayhew
@SRW1: EXACTLY, he knew what he was doing, made an informed decision, and accepted the consequences. I have no problem with a player doing that, especially if they are doing such a thing in a manner which can’t physically harm an opponent.
Richard Mayhew
@ThresherK: The smart red card was a high school boys varsity game, the dumb red card was D-3 men, the VCs were D-2 women, and the SFP was high school varsity.
Richard Mayhew
@Joel: makes sense to me. As well as the answer that rotating crews allows for one crew to be assigned to a 3-4 game series with both teams accepting that even if Ump 1 is behind the plate and his strike zone favors team B, it will all even out over 162 games as Ump 1 will only see that combination of teams, from behind the plate, once or twice a season at most.
raven
@Joel:NEW YORK — NBA referee Dick Bavetta is retiring after a 39-year career in which he never missed an assignment.
Dick Bavetta officiated a record 2,635 consecutive NBA regular-season games after starting his career on Dec. 2, 1975.
Bavetta officiated a record 2,635 consecutive regular-season games after starting his NBA career on Dec. 2, 1975. He also worked 270 playoff games, including 27 in the NBA Finals.
Someguy
Soccer needs a penalty goal as rugby has a penalty try, for situations where a goal would certainly have been scored but for a blatant foul, or cynical “professional” play. It would cut down on fullbacks catching volley kicks in their hands, and desparate defenders doing a hard tackle from behind to prevent an attacker from kicking on an open goal.
And ditto what was said above about soccer being a shambles at the international level. Wayne Rooney is right, England don’t play cynically enough to ever win the world cup again. Around half of the games were painful to watch with the diving, and then when brutal, dirty hits occurred (see, e.g. Brazil) the officials often miss what should have been a red card foul, because it’s hard to tell whether a player is hamming it up, or has a broken back. We shouldn’t reward in sport what we’d vote out of office, divorce or un-friend in real life.
Richard Briggs
You say that now you can turn down “bad games” – is it just the low paycheck or are there other factors that make it a bad game?
Bloix
“I was there to babysit”
If you have contempt for less-skilled under-14 players who are coached by volunteers (“someone’s dad”) then perhaps you shouldn’t be reffing their games. I say this as a dad who coached kid’s soccer for a few years and who has two sons who played youth soccer and loved it for 12 years each, although soccer was not the primary sport for either one. From the sidelines we parents could tell which refs were teaching the kids to be better players, which ones were power-tripping, and which ones were phoning it in. The kids could tell, too.
I’m not criticizing – I can imagine how boring these games must be for you. But if you don’t need the money, perhaps a ref who is happy to have the work would be less condescending to the players and the parents who are paying the bills.
WaterGirl
@Bloix: I will be interested to see Richard’s reply to your comment.
I didn’t take “I was there to babysit” as condescending so much as I took it as a realization that there was a mismatch between his refereeing and what was more appropriate for that level of game. That doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad thing to me.
I do agree, however, that a smug or condescending ref just shouldn’t be there at all.
cmorenc
@Someguy:
That’s exactly what a Penalty Kick (PK) is in soccer! Provided the foul occurred within the Penalty Area, the 18 yard deep x 44 yard wide rectangle immediately in front of each goal. At higher levels, the vast majority of PKs are converted to goals.
Insofar as deliberate handling of the ball to prevent a goal, there are very few circumstances in which it’s practically possible for a cynical defender to prevent a “certain” goal except by being positioned inside the PA (thereby resulting in a PK + a red card against that defender for DOGSO-H (denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by a handling foul). It is rather tragic that one of the very few instances where the aggrieved team failed to convert a PK from a DOGOS-H situation was the notorious Luis Suarez incident in 2010 (Ghana v. Uruguay).
Insofar as a hard DOGSO tackle from behind, sometimes a defender is cynically successful in committing the foul before the attacker-in-possession reaches the boundary of the Penalty Area. Regarding the certainty of the goal-scoring opportunity, the penalty area is one of the relatively few areas where soccer has adopted a black-and-white, sharp-edged binary rule for determining when the consequence is a free kick with high-percentage odds of a goal (penalty kick) verses merely a free kick from a favorable attacking position (much lower odds of success). From further out the probability an attacker fouled from behind would have scored a goal becomes much more subjective and uncertain – it’s much easier for the referee to make a plausibly accurate judgment call that it was an obvious goal-scoring opportunity. using the four D’s (distance from goal, direction, number of defenders, distance of attacker from ball (i.e. how well he had it under control) than it is to judge that he “certainly would have scored.”
Ruckus
@Joel:
Met a man 1993 who was 95. If I hadn’t known that I would have figured him for a healthy, robust 65. At most. He moved like an athlete of 40, was as sharp mentally as anyone that age. As someone getting closer to that age than I’d like, I have to say that some and I do mean some people at that age really are in great shape. Most of us getting there are less so. This gentleman sounds like one of the few instead of one of the many.
Robby-D
Thank-you Richard, I really enjoyed reading this insight; having been to a couple (low-level) professional games I had come away completely unimpressed with the play and officiating, but this gives me pause. Perhaps understanding the nuance of soccer officiating may make the game more enjoyable as a spectator? I personally would welcome a couple future posts from you on your officiating experiences and thoughts.
Thanks!
Amir Khalid
@Robby-D:
The Guardian’s football page has a weekly illustrated feature which I find helpful as a fan learning to understand refereeing decisions.
Waynski
@raven:
This. And parents are morons. I officiated soccer for a few years in my early teens. I can’t remember how young you can be to play AYSO (seven or eight years old?). Anyway, their parents would yell at me about calls from the sidelines and yell at me after the game. At this age, at that time in America (late 70s) the kids were basicly following the ball around like a pack of dogs. I calmly explained to them that what seemed like over officiating to them is how they learn the rules of the game and that they’ll be better players because of it. If little Jimmy learns that he can’t tackle from behind, trip another player or grab another player the by the shirt and pull him to the ground, eventually, he might make the high school team. But if he’s constantly drawing penalties, no one will want little Jimmy on their team if he can’t control himself.
Roger Moore
@Tokyokie:
They actually move around in a defined pattern, so this is absolutely necessary. For example, on a fly ball that may be a difficult catch, the nearest base umpire is supposed to run toward the potential play so he has a better chance of making a good call on a questionable catch. That puts him out of position for the calls at his base, and one of the other base umpires is supposed to rotate over to make any calls there.
raven
@Waynski: I actually liked soccer back in those days because parents KNEW they didn’t know shit about it. Now they are as bad, or worse, that the other idiots. I had a pretty tough parental behavior policy that we enforced. Unfortunately it involved having the child leave the program so it was less than ideal.
randy khan
@Roger Moore:
I was just about to post the same thing – MLB umpires, despite not moving around as much as soccer or basketball officials, actually do move around a lot. Even the home plate umpire moves away from the base on occasion (although not very far).
Violet
I caught about two seconds of a football game last night as I turned on the TV and it was on. A referee was about to make some call using the microphone pack thing so the camera was on him. I noticed he had these weird things on his wrists and hands. Black wristbands, but there seemed to be two straps that came from them and went across the top of his hands and I guess he put his fingers through something to hold the whole thing in place? It looked like a weird glove type thing straight out of a 1980’s music video. Or Mad Max. Any idea what that’s all about? He was wearing them on both hands.
ThresherK
@Amir Khalid: Oooh. I have a new thing to check on the internet every week. Thanks much.
kuvasz
As an ex- youth league ump: The reason is that until you get to college level baseball you do not always have more than one or two umpires and they have to be versatile enough to ump all the bases. So at the majors all the umpires have umpired every base for years if not decades.
Corner Stone
@Violet: What you saw might have been one or both of two things 1)straps to his whistle and/or 2) they use the strings or bands to keep track of what down it is. They move them from finger to finger depending on their system.
Violet
@Corner Stone: Hmmmm, interesting. Thanks. I’d never noticed anything like that before. It really did look like a 1980’s Madonna video or something. The straps were maybe an inch or so wide, so they were noticeable. Not a thin band or cord.
Corner Stone
@Violet: Maybe it’s a personal protest to highlight the plight of women bound to a relationship they feel powerless to escape from?
Mornington Crescent
I remember watching highlights of a game where an umpire messed up a set rotation play. I think it was at Pittsburgh sometime in the 80s.
It was something like 2-1 late, a man on first and two out, and the home team batter hit a fly ball into the left field corner.
The third base umpire ran down the line to make the fair call, the home plate umpire covered third, and the first base umpire ran home to make a call. Except when there was a close call at the plate, the first base umpire was still at first and there was no umpire at the plate.
The home plate umpire then ran back down the line, stood over home plate and called the man out. This was followed by a lenghty and entertaining argument.
Just One More Canuck
@Waynski: My daughter’s soccer team (up here in the Great white north) has the parents sign a code of conduct about how they will behave on the sidelines, not only towards their own kids, but alos to the other team and the referee. This is her first year on the competitive team and I’ve never even noticed any issues – the code seems to be enforced by the parents themselves (some of the kids have been on the team for a couple of years – the coach is very serious about parent conduct. But I really notice a big difference between how parents from other teams act
Someguy
@cmorenc: That’s exactly what a Penalty Kick (PK) is in soccer!
No, it isn’t. A 70% chance of giving up a goal is something most players in serious leagues would chose over giving up a certain goal. And for those oddball breakaways where the goalie gets caught way out of position and the attacker gets tackled or interfered with brutally, preventing a certain goal, there is almost no chance of giving up a goal where the penalty is committed outside the box. A direct kick from 30 yards has little chance of going in, unless the goalkeeping is exceptionally incompetent or the kicker exceptionally skillful.
Admittedly, the notion of applying a standard of “a goal would have been scored but for the misconduct” throws a tough decision into the referee’s hands, and cowardly refs aren’t going to call a penalty try (in rugby) or my proposed penalty goal in soccer. But it puts it more out in the open and the smart cynical players – who are happy getting yellow or even red carded to stop a certain goal – would be deterred. Commit the penalty, concede the goal plus get carded? No thanks. Better to just concede the goal and carry on.
Of course such a decision is likely to spur wars between Central American countries and result in murdered referees, but that already represents the status quo, does it not?
raven
@Just One More Canuck: That should be at the league level but it’s still on track.
Richard Mayhew
@Richard Briggs: Lots of different criteria for a game that I don’t want– and pay is fairly low on the list.
Are the parents a pain in the ass and yelling without a clue for the entire game
Are the players playing coherent soccer or is it kick and run
Will the players work with me or will I just need to pull out cards for man management
Do the coaches actually coach or just yell at the kids to run harder or SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT
Is the field such that I have a good chance of breaking an ankle
Do I have sufficient time to get to my next assignment AND get a bite to eat/change shoes/decompress
There is a league around me that pays fairly low, but the quality of play is high, the coaches and parents are knowledgable enough so that when they start hectoring the ref, it is coherent and informed heckling, the fields are nice, and the scheduling is reasonable (a 70 minute game has a 90 or 105 minute playing block instead of 70 minutes of scheduled time in an 80 minute block). This league is U-10 through U-14, and I’ll do that league any time they call and I have an opening. I enjoy myself.
Paul in KY
I think it is because the umpire crew rotates around during a series & thus a team that doesn’t like the plate umpire’s calls would not be subjected to him/her 3 or 4 games in a row.
Corner Stone
@Paul in KY: Home plate umpire would be physically destroyed after a few series if all he did was serve at the plate. Maybe mentally too, after enough grief about balls and strikes or out at the plate calls.
Richard Mayhew
@Bloix: I did not mean it to be condescending, I meant it as a short hand for what the game required. I had made a mistake in my operating assumption as to what the game in question needed.
A high skilled game with players on both teams who want to play will want the following:
* The referee to hold the whistle after a hard challenge where a foul was committed because the fouled team wants to see if advantage is gained.
* The referee to elevate the distinction between “trifiling” (inconsequential) contact and “careless” fouling (simple direct free kicks)
*The referee to look more for flow instead of foul count
*The referee to intervene for tactical fouling instead of clumsy contact
“Babysitting” in my mind means the teams want a whistle as soon as someone is touched even if the ball is going to an open attacker who has 30 yards of space in front of them. They want a fast whistle for fairly low level of contact, they want cautions instead of the referee man managing the situation.
Waynski
@raven:
There were a lot of highly paid Wall St. execs in my town in suburban NY. Not knowing about something never stopped them from asserting that they did, and in fairness, a lot them played in prep school or college, maybe. In any case, I may have blown some calls but these Dads acted like little Jimmy was in the World Cup. I guess either they had bad tempers, were used to getting their way, or were just jerks. That said in a business where if you lose money, you lose your job, I kind of understand it. Nevertheless, you don’t yell at someone else’s thirteen year-old kid in the parking lot over a (possibly) blown call in a pee-wee game. As the British would say, it’s “Not Cricket”.
Stephen Suh
@Richard Mayhew:
Amen. So many times a nice run has been called back for a free kick that totally destroys momentum and gives the defense time to set up.
I’d also add that at higher levels, most parents want refs to ignore them. It’s a competition involving our kids. We’re going to groan and cheer and holler just like fans do at any other sport. Because at our level, if you do something dumb like, I don’t know, give a team a goal when the ball actually landed on the back of the net and rolled down it, we’re going to file a complaint with a field marshal – and we’re especially going to do it when you start screaming at the 12-year-old girl playing in the goal. If he had just kept his mouth shut, we would have gotten over it, especially since our side won the game.
Darkrose
@magurakurin: Baseball’s officiating crisis is about accountability. The replay system is a good idea, but the replay umpires need to be identified, just on general principle; making it some big secret leads to questions. With the Pitch f/x technology, it’s easy to see where a pitch really was; umpires who regularly have inconsistent or grossly non-regulation strike zones should be fined. And Joe West, Angel Hernandez, “Balkin'” Bob Davidson, and Laz Diaz should not have jobs. The fact that as a fan, I know their names and be able to come up with multiple instances of egregiously bad calls and unprofessional behavior on their parts, is an indication of how they think the game is about them and not the players.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: Also a very good point.
Downpuppy
@Darkrose: Now that there is that strike zone graphic, I’m generally really impressed with the ball & strike calling. Most pitches are right on the edge, and most umps get the vast majority right.
I can’t even get Out calls right in tennis, though, so maybe just easily impressed.
Robert Sneddon
@Someguy: Penalty kicks are taken from 18 yards out, not 30 yards. The kicker has an unimpeded run at the spotted ball, the keeper can’t move their feet until the ball is struck. Most teams have several specialist kickers who train to take penalty kicks if called upon so the odds in the higher-rank games of scoring from the spot are way better than 70%.
The exception is multiple penalty kicks to decide a drawn match after extra time where the kickers rotate through the team and usually end up with non-specialist kickers some of whom may have been playing for two hours and are tired (but of course so is the keeper). The odds of scoring fall off somewhat then.
The other thing is that a deliberate handball that, in the judgement of the referee, prevents a goal-scoring opportunity is an automatic red card leaving the team down a player for the rest of the game. The player will also face disciplinary proceedings by the league leading to missing future matches. Repeated red cards garner higher penalties such as being banned for the rest of the season as well as having the team itself penalised with fines and even the loss of league points in extremis.
Your solution puts the onus of the referee awarding goals to a team that did not actually put the ball in the back of the net, based on their snap judgement when possibly unsighted or unable to clearly determine the ball’s trajectory.
Darkrose
@Downpuppy: I think the majority of calls are right. But it drives me nuts when the Giants broadcasters give their umpire scouting report and say, “Well, once you’ve established that you’re throwing strikes, he’ll give you the corners,” or “He’ll give the high strike but rarely calls anything low,” or “He’s a real hitter’s umpire and doesn’t like to ring guys up.”
There is a regulation strike zone. It shouldn’t change based on a pitcher’s command on a given day, or who a pitcher is, or whether the umpire’s tired and just wants the game to end or feels bad for the hitters and won’t ring them up.
Richard Mayhew
@Robert Sneddon: Couple of things wrong here:
1) Penalty mark is at 12 yards not 18
2) Keeper can move side to side but s/he must have a portion of the shoe on or behind the field side edge of the goal line and between the posts (a keeper could start in the back of the net and come forward in an attempt to time the kick, I have not seen that, but it is legal)
3) 70% to 75% is the expected conversion rate of a penalty kick at the highest levels. Below that, it varies widely as keeper and kicker quality varies widely. I would say half the misses are actual saves, and the other half are kicks off frame.
As far as DOGSO, a smart defender who just got his ankles broken will drag down the attacker at 30 yards as the goal conversaion rate is 20% at best from there while 1v1 against keeper, the conversion rate is at least 50%. Doing that in the 1st minute might not be a wise decision due to forcing the team to play down for the rest of the match, but doing it with 3 or 4 minutes left is a good decision.
Chet
I’m actually surprised the MLB umps’ union hasn’t lobbied for position rotation WITHIN games, i.e. having a guy work the plate for innings 1-3, 1B for innings 4-6, etc.
Robert Sneddon
@Richard Mayhew: I wonder what I was thinking of about 18 yards… Is that the distance to the forward edge of the penalty box perhaps?
Maybe the no-movement rule changed a while ago. I presume the “behind the goal line” rule is based on the idea that the keeper can’t close with the kicker until the ball is struck so they can’t narrow the angles pre-emptively.
As for conversion rates a pro keeper will also train intensively to defend penalty kicks but a top-class penalty specialist will still have a better than 70% scoring record. A given team might only have one such kicker though. I’ve seen at least a couple of games where the goal-keeper took penalties as the best penalty-kick specialist on the squad.
What’s the usual game penalty for a red card in the leagues you normally referee? Automatic two game suspension or more or does it go to a judicial panel of some sort? What about regular offenders? I assume you write a report on any red card you hand out for someone to read in such situations.
Richard Mayhew
@Robert Sneddon: Really depends on the league for what a red card is worth.
A standard Red (not violent conduct, not fighting) without unusual circumstances is an automatic 1 game suspension.
Violent Conduct in most of the youth leagues and the men’s amateur leagues are 2-4 games
Fighting in college is usually more.
Most leagues will look at the usual suspects and frequent offenders with a harsher eye. As a referee, I file the report with full details, and then let the League administration take care of the suspension. If a player/coach asks me how long are they sitting, I am instructed to say ” I don’t know, that is the League’s decision, I am filing this red card as…..”
pseudonymous in nc
@Someguy:
Er, no. But it’s nice to see ‘Let’s Decide What Rules Soccer Ought To Have’ lasting beyond the World Cup. Okay if I point out how rugby union is deadly dull now that there are so many replacements and everybody’s built like a number 8?
Tom_23
I appreciate these posts on refereeing as it really gives a great perspective.
True story from a coed soccer game many moons ago that really made me appreciate a good ref and having control over a game. A chippy game between my team and what seemed like a pickup squad. which was a company team where there are up to 2 good players and then anyone (like me) out to have fun. No tackling rule and both sides were definitely pushing the boundries a bit. And I recall many complaints getting registered to the ref both for the chippy factor as well just calls that seemed wrong. (e.g. Out of bounds going to wrong team.) The ref didn’t have control over the game and there was definitely no flow. At one point the other team gets a foul 10 yards outside the box on a chippy play and there was definitely tensions rising. We setup the amateur wall when one of the other team instigators elbows his way into our wall. I am between the guy and one of our good players who was also a really good hockey player. He had enough after yelling at the guy for a bit. He reached behind me and slapped the guy upside the head. Just a tap but a total hockey play! Ref saw it and threw our guy out. Appropriate but didn’t handle the instigator. More complaints and yelling at ref from both sides. The ref had enough and walked off the pitch. Game over.
Met another guy playing in a subsequent week and it turned out he shared an apartment with the ref. We talked quick and had a good laugh about the situation. Turned out it was his first match. Poor guy.
randy khan
@Darkrose: In fairness, the regulation strike zone does change from batter to batter, so umpires are adjusting the whole game.
Someguy
@pseudonymous in nc: Okay if I point out how rugby union is deadly dull now that there are so many replacements and everybody’s built like a number 8?
Yeah, it sure sucks now that props are thin enough to occasionally run the ball, that you can remove unconscious and bleeding players from the pitch before full time, and fly halves don’t piss their pants if the opposing flanker passes nearby with a ball in hand… Men were real men back in the day, not these limpwristed pantywaists with French and colonial sorts of names. Harrumph harrumph!
But seriously, what southern hemisphere league filled with stereotypes are you watching? The Aviva Premiership, Top 14 and Top 12 are nothing like that. They’re like old top level club rugby leagues, except with fitter players and more dynamic play.
Just One More Canuck
@Someguy: i didnt get a harrumph out of that guy
Corner Stone
@Chet:
Why in the absolute hell would they want that?
The players would kill that in game transition from low inside strike zone to belt high strike zone to cock shot strike zone.
That is a truly bad idea.
Donalbain
In baseball, could pitches be judged by a Hawk-Eye system?