Blame it All on the Umpires
The media is all a-twitter about the sudden inability of baseball umpires to make any correct calls during this postseason. Safe is out and out is safe. The Alice-in-Wonderland performance of the men in blue has increased demands for instant replay. Baseball purists explode in response that, after all, the game is not football, where the referee escapes from the field to don his video hood and watch the replay for ten minutes while the network shows commercials. But the flubs on the baseball diamond are troubling. What are we to do?
Some demand a technological response to every questionable call. We have all seen umpires miss ball-and-strike calls according to the Amica strike zone. Replay on the base paths are even more telling. He was off the bag! No one seems to bother with the abundant calls the umpires get right, all in an instant. We expect them to be perfect, and then improve. National League Umpire Harry Wendelstedt suggested what might happen: "If they did get a machine to replace us . . . the players would bust it to pieces every time it ruled against them. They'd clobber it with a bat."
Umpires have always been subject to criticism. In the nineteenth century, umpires were attacked by the crowd of "cranks" and had to be escorted from the field when the home team lost. It was not by chance that the most ubiquitous chant in the game was directed not at the opposing team, but at the officials: "Kill the umpire!" Johnny Evers of the Hall of Fame double play combination of Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance, said: "My favorite umpire is a dead one." Ugh. Even the glorious Christian Gentleman, Christy Mathewson, expressed his negative views: "Many baseball fans look upon an umpire as a sort of necessary evil to the luxury of baseball, like the odor that follows an automobile."
I still prefer the way games were umpired when the sport began in the mid-nineteenth century. There was but one umpire who sat on a raised chair adjacent to the first base line. When he could not see a play, he would turn to the crowd and ask their opinion. Now there is an improvement.
There is no reason why instant replay should not be extended to all so-called "boundary" calls. Currently, umpires can go to the videotape when there is a question whether a hit was a home run, fell short or went foul. It would be easy to use tape to check calls about fair or foul balls down the line, and it shouldn't take much time. This way Joe Mauer's hit in the second game of the Twins division series against the Yankees would have been called a double. The Yanks still would have won the series.
I guess that my overall feeling about this newly-discovered lack of confidence in the umpires is that it is a tempest in a rather small teapot. In the long run, it will all even out - but, as John Maynard Keynes reminded us, "in the long run, we are all dead." New, enhanced technological replays, however, will not bring a pennant to Cleveland or Baltimore.
Baseball is tailor-made for controversy, which, I guess, is part of its charm. No other game allows (perhaps encourages) a manager to run out on the field and vocally protest an umpire's call directly to his face. On occasion, the manager may be tossed out of the game, but that is rare. Generally, I find this tantruming amusing, although terrible role modeling for our children. Earl Weaver, the longtime manager of the Orioles, was my favorite. Heading to the dugout after one song-and-dance with an umpire, Weaver said, "I'm going to check the rule-book on that." The umpire responded, "Here, use mine." Weaver quickly replied: "That's no good - I can't read Braille."
Here's one idea no one has suggested. If an umpire makes a really bad call, maybe the offended team can throw him out of the game. Hit the showers, ump.
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When I was a kid in the sixites, I would watch a game on TV and swear the ump was blind. The primitive instant replay available at that time proved me wrong and the ump right always. Even if it was a tenth of an inch, replay showed the ump was right.
Today, even at regular speed it is obvious to all the ump is wrong, and frequently.
I don't think play review is necessary during the 162 game regular season where these things tend to even out, unlike the 16 game football season where every game is critical (losing one football game is the equivalent of a 10 game baseball losing streak.)
But, in the playoffs, absolutely. Everything except balls and strikes. Included should be HBP, fair/foul. plays on the bases, trapped balls (did it hit the ground?) home runs, tagging too early.
Have an extra umpire in replay booth, , and review the play (just like we see the replay instantly on our home TV screens.) Call down to the crew chief umpire on a headset and tell him yes or no. Simple/fast/right.
The coaches challenge hasn't affected football, and think how happy the home town fan is when the call is overturned in their favor.
Fans go home feeling clean after a football game because they know all practicable was done to insure the right call.
I've needed a shower after watching a couple of this years MLB playoff games.
If you're going to add all that technology to baseball, why stop there? Let's just create artificial players in a fantasy league and have a computer decide the outcomes of the games. Load it all into PlayStations and X-boxes, and connect it to online gambling sites.
Then cities wouldn't have to build new stadiums for all the poor, suffering billionaire team owners and millionaire players. Average MLB annual salary = $3.26 million, right? That would hire 100 teachers.
WHY DO THEY CALL IT THE "WORLD SERIES" WHEN IT'S ALWAYS PLAYED IN THE BRONX???
I do not watch much baseball, but I did watch last night's game. I was amazed at how many obviously outside pitches were called strikes. There definitely is a problem with umpires.
What are we to do?
Find the evidence of the payoffs and correct the action. Simple.
I'm a huge baseball fan, and I've never seen officiating as poor as I've seen in these playoffs. It's really disturbing to see how many times umpires blew ball and strike calls. I think from now on, in the post-season only, that balls and strikes should be judged by lasers. Then no one has to guess where the umps strike-zone is.
I have umpired a number of games at the Little league and High School level. It is a tough job and I would have welcomed some technology to help with tough calls - like low strikes. When people got on me I stopped the game and told them one more time and they were gone - it worked like a charm.
You are taught to wait a second to be sure before making the call. I think the egos of the umpires are too big and that is the problem. They should welcome the support technology can bring.
Keep the Game the Same.
No changes.
Technology has it’s flaws too.
Agree!
...said the Yankees fans.
I see the solution and it's way beyond easy. Balls n strikes should be called by the ump behind the plate any other close call on the bases where the umpire is not 100% sure should be called by conference, that is when not sure the ump will ask other umps what they saw and in the meanwhile someone should review the play on screen and relay to the umps what the call should be.
With players making many millions of dollars, clubs competing for playoff money and players looking for endorsement money why should a few poorly paid people be in charge of getting calls right. They also should give a raise to the umps seeing eye dogs.
Yeah, that sounds great, because baseball as its currently played is far too fast paced and exciting. We need to slow it down a bit.
Yes, I'm kidding. I think instant replays are the work of the devil. Well not really since I'm an atheist but I don't like them. Umpires, refs, etc. are human. They make bad calls, its part of the game.
Baseball is only slow if you don't understand it...sitting around, waiting for something to happen. If you really understand it, and think of the coaches perspective on each situation and contingency situations...like when to play hit-and-run; or think of the pitch-calling from the pitcher or hitters perspective, the game moves very quickly.
It was a slippery slope they went down with instant replay and while I will admit the so called "integrity" of the game has improved, so has it's creepiness. Cmon people this stuff really ain;t that important. When I see people being buried with thier Ohio State sweaters or cars painted LSU purple and gold ( yes the royal colors) I think what a pathetic life he must have had if football was the highlight.
Completely agree. Also, its not just that the game itself isn't all that important its that perfect calls were never part of the game. Refs, umps, make mistakes, its one of the breaks just like the wind changing direction or winning the coin toss.
Yup, exactly. I agree they need better umpires, but let's keep this in perspective. It's a game.
Sorry, Yankee pitchers all. They have no scruples or dignity or ethics or gravitas or any sense of true sportsmanship. Why am I even saying this? It will make no difference to the $$$$$$$$$$$$$bags.
Hi to Roger Abrams, indeed. I am just an old bag who has watched the baseball for years and I say that Yankee pitcher catch their runny noses and spit into their glove. Foul on them.
Major League Baseball has been supporting bad Balls and Strikes calls for decades with the nonsense that it is acceptable if an ump calls pitches incorrectly "as long as he is consistent'. If the technology shows an ump calls a pitch a strike that is outside the strike zone too often, he should be fired.
The first thing Little Leaguers are taught is to know the strike zone Why should major league hitters have to adjust to an umpires oversized strike zone? Why should a pitcher have to adjust to an umpire who squeezes the strike zone? And, the assertion that the ump is being 'consistent' is never documented.
If a home plate umpire has a strike zone that is wider or narrower than normal, let him bring a plate the size of his strike zone. Then, at least, a batter would know what his strike zone is rather than figuring out whether he should swing at a pitch 3 inches outside because the ump sometimes calls it a strike.
If the technology exists to calls balls and strikes accurately by sensor, bring it on.
10/24/09
10pm
Alexandria, VA
My Dad volunteered to ump at Babe Ruth games when I was the same age as the boys playing. He only did it because nobody else wanted to do it.
We all would have been happy to have an electronic ump--I sure didn't need to hear people yelling "Kill the ump!" and neither did he.
Judgment calls on balls and strikes decide every game. They are unnecessary, and they're making baseball obsolete. Balls and strikes should be called instantaneously with sensor technology.
Basketball solved a similar problem early on when they started hanging nets under the hoop. Made it easy to tell when the ball went through and when it didn't. That was a low-tech solution to what could have been a sport-killing problem. If you've ever played on a playground, you know what I mean. Can you imagine an NBA referee "deciding" on each bucket?
So why do umpires still "decide" each ball or strike? The solution is a bit more advanced than nets, but it's available and cheap: Light-sensitive thread at the letters and knees of uniforms; sensors on the corners of home plate; beams focused on the batter. If the ball breaks the beam, the scoreboard automatically posts a strike. Every supermarket in the country uses similar technology to prevent shoplifting.
The idea of a person "calling" every increment of the game is nonsense. It's great that umpires are right most of the time. And there's still plenty of need for umpires to make many judgment calls. But what's the excuse for not getting balls and strikes right ALL the time? Real "purists" will favor purity over pollution.
Judgment and argument are not sport. Debate, maybe. Or politics. Or jurisprudence. Baseball needs to decide whether it wants to be a sport or an opinion society.
Better yet, let's have the players replaced by robots that will only throw strikes and every pitch will be swung at. No more boring walks! Really, if having balls and strikes called by idiosyncratic humans bothers you that much, find another sport to follow. Having fifteen cameras at the game to record every angle is a technological fetish, and the producers and announcers thrive on picking each play apart, especially in the playoffs. It doesn't make the game any more interesting. It's not a video game, it's baseball. There's nothing wrong with the game that cutting player salaries and ticket prices in half won't fix.
Bravo! Wish I had said that!
cosign!
If we want to use technology, maybe we should introduce pitching machines.
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