Special Article

Special Article

Writing a Report (Properly)

An NVBUA Complaint Department Presentation

Norm Gordon, Situation Management Coordinator

Umpiring a baseball game involves a number of skills: rules knowledge, judgement, a grasp of mechanics, and management of the game. Part of your ‘game management’ skills should be the ability to document and report anything that may have affected the normal conduct of the contest, as well as any interactions, discussions, or confrontations which occurred prior to, during, or after the contest.

Anything and everything that is reportable needs to be conveyed in a clear and concise manner in your report. This pertains to ejection reports, as well as abrasive interactions with coaches, fans, and partners before, during, or after a game.

Strange situations as well as disagreements between partners often happen. If such disagreements advance to a point where the association should become involved; clear, concise information should be conveyed in a written report.

Understand that ejection reports and ‘situation complaints’ are handled differently, but the underlying principles of producing them are the same!

Using a tried-and-true journalistic method is the best way to include everything important to the report: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.

• Who: Identifies the people, groups, or subjects involved in the event.
• What: Explains the action, event, or main issue that took place.
• When: Specifies the date, time, or period when it happened.
• Where: Tells the location or place where the action occurred.
• Why: Uncovers the reasons, causes, or motivations behind the event.
• How: Describes the method, process, or manner in which it was done.

Be specific with what is said, especially if it involves disparaging remarks and/or profanity. Include the precise profanity used, not an abbreviated form of it. Do NOT interject your opinion into any written report. As Joe Friday on TV’s “Dragnet” used to say…we need the facts, just the facts.

The toughest point to describe involves the “Why” as a reaction to a playing situation, an umpire judgement, or an ‘excited utterance’ may have underlying reasons that will not be apparent or even directly related to ‘why’ something happened. The ‘why’ might explain a reason behind ‘the facts’ but might also be nearly impossible for us as umpires to know.

So, when writing a report, be brief, concise, factual and nonjudgemental. Your report is simply the first step in a process. Pertinent bodies take the report, analyze it, and confirm or suggest resolutions. The more clear-cut information you can provide, the better.

Ejection reports are handled by the NVBUA/MAC Administrative staff, and require immediate action after an ejection occurs, so precision is of the utmost importance.

As Mr. Porter mentioned during a recent association meeting, reports that are not associated with ejections, usually concerning behavior issues, confrontations, and especially arguments between and among umpires, are the reports that requires the most ‘backfilling’ of facts and information for the Situation Management Committee in order to find a resolution. This is where presenting yourself in a positive light is either noticed or exposed.

Here’s an example of a report (complaint/inquiry) that came to us this summer. A men’s league ‘complained’ that an umpire in one of their games left early, they thought, due to a ‘hangover.’

Along with the date, that was pretty much the extent of the information they provided. We had to investigate the following:

• Who: Chris Williams had to provide the names of the umpires.
• What: After finding out the umpires involved in the game, we had to ask ‘what happened.’
• When: We knew the date. The umpires gave us the time and level of play.
• Where: Umpires told us the site of the game.
• Why: The league involved never mentioned any concerns to the umpires, so the umpires had to conjecture what caused the league to initiate their concern.
• How: Both umpires told us exactly how they handled the situation and how they informed the involved teams of the action that they were taking.

We really had to pry the information out of the two umpires, with a lot of back-and-forth emails and explanations, so our job would have been streamlined with a better approach by the umpires to providing the “5 Ws and an H.” The explanations supported the fact that one umpire had a pre-existing illness, then suffered from excess heat during the game before departing. The participants did not know these facts, and did not need to know them.

Reports are a necessary ‘evil’ needed to ensure our association operates in a consistent manner. Good luck writing!