It appears to have changed for the 2007 season. Here's an explanation from the "Baseball 2007" supplement to the NCAA Baseball Rules prepared by the editors of Referee magazine

Featuring a pic of Wayne Graham.

Speaking of umpires: Ran into an ex-college, minor league umpire yesterday and his opinion is that college umpiring will be improving because more minor league umpires are joining college baseball ranks. Minor league umps have a hard time advancing to the majors -- only 64 spots IIRC. After they leave MiLB they can make good change on the weekend calling college ball. They are replacing a lot of long-time college umps. The ex-ump thinks the minor league umpires are an improvement over the long-time college umpires.

(06-30-2017 08:17 AM)grol Wrote:  Speaking of umpires: Ran into an ex-college, minor league umpire yesterday and his opinion is that college umpiring will be improving because more minor league umpires are joining college baseball ranks. Minor league umps have a hard time advancing to the majors -- only 64 spots IIRC. After they leave MiLB they can make good change on the weekend calling college ball. They are replacing a lot of long-time college umps. The ex-ump thinks the minor league umpires are an improvement over the long-time college umpires.

Improving umpiring should be a major goal for NCAA baseball. I've always thought that the two issues that make the college game less attractive to the casual professional baseball fan are metal bats and the quality of umpiring. At least we haven't seen Greg Oros in a long while.

(07-01-2017 09:57 AM)Old Sammy Wrote:  At least we haven't seen Greg Oros in a long while.

Oros was in Sugar Land this week, umping the Skeeters' series with the Long Island Ducks.