Funny enough, leaving the refs with the responsibility is what we were told to do at the last MSTS at the National Western Complex in Denver last fall. Mike Lynch runs this series, for those that don't know. We were told that the refs would pull our armbands when we were out. We were to play unless we were sure we were hit. The refs did penalize playing on with obvious hits, but you had to be fast to play on. The refs were fast, and even handed in my opinion. Believe it or not, this worked pretty well. Maybe not everyone who played the tournament felt that way, but it seemed like the guys were honest, if not perfect.
It wasn't hard to understand, although I got picked on a little for leaving the field and pulling my own armband when they got me clean. "There was no ref around" was the comment. I didn't want to risk a 1-4-1, though. I did keep playing when I got hit on the pack once, but they caught up to me and took my band before I did any damage. No 1-4-1, as it was on the pack and I had started to move when it happened. Seemed like a better risk, as it wasn't clear that I would have felt it. In fact, I heard it. I always get to cover before checking for breaks anyway. This time, a ref pulled me at about the time I would have been looking myself over. They were on it.
It may sound like chaos, but when the umpire says you're out, you're out. How hard is that? The key is that the umpires are obeyed. They aren't always respected, treated graciously, or allowed to do their job without catching hell from a manager, but they get to decide what happened and how the rules dictate the result. If there were revenue in playing, and I were caught pushing a lttle too hard, I'd pay a fine. If the fine were too high for me to afford, I'd make sure I didn't break the rules. That might change from week to week, the chances I am willing to take. The way I see it, if you can do the time, go do the crime. If not, well... innocence is the best way to stay out of trouble.
Another anecdote: at World Cup last fall, I was in a 1 on 3. I moved back into a corner. I took a hit on the elbow, glanced down and saw no paint, so I kept playing. The ref called me out because he said it broke on me, although the paint fill all sprayed off into space. I accepted this with good grace. We were told to expect this sort of thing on that particular field, so I wasn't surprised. I would have prefered to see consistency across all the fields in calls like that, but hey. At least these refs did as they said they would. And given that was the reffing environment in which we found ourselves, we played accordingly.
See, this is what an authority figure does: they enforce the law o' the land to the extent that they expect that law to be obeyed. Refs or marshalls are authority figures, and they provide the check on the rules and how seriously everyone takes them.
The penalty system of X-ball is great, but the real difference is that there are enough refs to follow everything that is going on. If every field had more referees than players, no one would get away with much. If there is only one umpire, you better hope it is a little league game. Hellthis applies to soccer, too. Never saw so many Oscar-worthy death scenes. It doesn't damage the credibility of the sport unless the marshalls let cheating go unpunished.
They're making the effort to have strict, competent judging. Anyone who went to the Huntington Beach event will tell you that. And the teams there learned pretty quickly that they needed to play straight up ball, not cheat, if they wanted to win.
