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 Post subject: Come on, now, Blue!
PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:58 am 
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Nice piece here from Bill Madden in the Daily News about the awful umpiring in this postseason. When bad umpiring decides games, it has to be eliminated.

And this was written a few days before we were treated to the spectacle of Phil Cuzzi's strike zone from outer space in Houston.

Mike Port, we have a problem.


Last edited by wordygurdy on Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:53 pm 
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I'm having trouble loading most of that page, but any column that starts out claiming Eddings made a bad call is questionable itself.

I haven't seen every inning pitched this postseason, but I've yet to see a bad call. And last night I was thinking to myself (and remarking to my cat) that the crew was particularly good. They confer when they need to. The strike zone was consistent. They're in proper position.

Mistakes will happen. Instant replay could ruin the game. Officiating is not a problem in baseball.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:13 pm 
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I concur with jjmoney. "Mistakes" by baseball umpires seem rare compared with those by officials in basketball and football, with which I am more familiar.

The refusal of basketball officials to call traveling, and of football officials to call holding, is maddening and wrong. But the "bad calls" even out over time.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:29 pm 
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Well, we'll have to agree to disagree.

The umpires are paid very good money to do one thing: get the calls right. That's all. No one pays to see the umpires, and for the most part they have gone out of their way to make bad calls and then throw out of the game the person arguing with them.

The Yankees were victimized by poor umpiring in the ALDS, and so were the Angels in the ALCS. That's not to say both teams deserved to win, just that the umpires weren't doing their jobs.

If you weren't watching the games, as Jj admitted he wasn't, then (with all due respect--don't throw me out of the thread!) you really aren't qualified to offer an educated opinion.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:47 pm 
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I've watched almost every game this postseason, and I think the problem is exaggerated greatly. The Eddings call was a close one. I think he got it wrong, but it was close enough that we can't pillory him for it. But we've had a whole thread on that and I'm not going to get back into it.

Other than that one call, I haven't seen a problem. And as a Yankees fan, I can only recall one questionable call that went against us in the ALDS (an out call at second base). I'm sure there were others in our favor. None of that would have mattered had the Angels not outplayed the Yankees (just as the White Sox much more than outplayed the Angels). Mike Scioscia said it best: You have to play well enough to absorb missed calls, and they didn't.

No series this postseason has been decided by umpiring error. I agree with Phillip that baseball has the most skilled officiating of the major sports.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:07 pm 
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As Madden writes, Robinson Cano was involved in both poorly umpired plays in the ALDS. In Game 3, Joe West ruled Cano had taken his foot off the bag as he fielded a fielder's choice from Alex Rodriguez. Cano's foot had not in fact come off the bag.

In Game 5 of the ALDS, West ruled Cano out for interference when he was clearly running in the baseline. If Cano had been correctly ruled safe, the Yankees would have had the bases loaded with two outs for Bernie Williams. Instead, the inning ended with the Yanks trailing 5-2.

Two nights ago, Phil Cuzzi's strike zone in Houston was patently absurd.

In Game 4 of the ALCS, plate umpire Ron Kulpa missed catcher's interference on A.J. Pierzynski when Steve Finley's bat collided with Pierzynski's glove.

Any other questions?


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:25 pm 
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Close calls happen. I'm not aware of a series in which the lesser team won because of umpiring error. Even in the 1985 World Series, the Royals outplayed the Cardinals. It's unfair both to Kansas City fans and to Don Denkinger to act as though the championship of that year is bathed in impermissible taint.

In Game 2 of this year's ALCS, the White Sox would have been more likely to win the game even if Pierzynski had been tagged out. They were the home team and had a fully rested bullpen. The Angels were on the road and had an overworked bullpen. The Yankees might have beaten the Angels in the previous round had A-Rod and Matsui been hitting.

In the quest to believe that one's team didn't really deserve to lose, a baseball fan is wont to focus on single moments rather than look at the big picture.

The same goes for player errors. As everyone forgets when discussing Bill Buckner: The game was already tied, and it was only Game 6. I reiterate my reliance on the Scioscia Maxim.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:20 pm 
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wordygurdy wrote:
In Game 5 of the ALDS, West ruled Cano out for interference when he was clearly running in the baseline. If Cano had been correctly ruled safe, the Yankees would have had the bases loaded with two outs for Bernie Williams. Instead, the inning ended with the Yanks trailing 5-2.


This call was definitely outrageous; I could not believe it was not overruled. (And I'm a Sox fan.)

The argument that calls "even out" doesn't work in the postseason; therefore, I would endorse a postseason-only instant replay, on the condition it could be done quickly. That Cano call was objectively wrong, and you could tell with a 10-second glance at a monitor. (To compensate for that, and just because it's a good idea, baseball could carve half an hour off of most games by forcing pitchers and batters to work more quickly. But game length is for another thread.)

I don't know what to do about that guy's bizarre strike zone the other night; I suspect we won't be seeing him in the postseason anytime soon.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:10 am 
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I agree with No. 1 and JJ, but I have to make a case against it with Phil Cuzzi. That strike zone was patently absurd. SportsCenter later that night ran a side-by-side with Berkman on the left and Edmonds on the right. The pitches hit the exact same spot. Berkman was award a base on balls, and Edmonds was called for strike two. And yet, almost every baseball columnist I've read the past couple days asks what LaRussa and Edmonds were thinking getting thrown out of that game.

Thom Brennenman said it best when Edmonds was thrown out -- you do not eject a batter in the eighth inning of a championship series unless he's bumped you or really . Edmonds barely had time to react before Cuzzi's thumb was in the air. Umpires are supposed to be impartial judges. Their calls might affect the outcome of a game, but they should never put themselves in a position where they are throwing out a player who has not earned an ejection. Cuzzi obviously sensed his strike zone was astronomical and was defensive about it.

But hey, we all know who I'm rooting for, so maybe I'm not being impartial, either.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:26 am 
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I think it's a romantic fiction that umps don't lose games for teams. All the new statistical work on baseball stresses how valuable each out is; a man on first with no outs (say) is an entirely different world than no one on and one out. So even minor-seeming bad calls change the course of a game. Calls that, for example, nullify legitimate home runs, or take away a runner during a comeback (a la the Yanks and Cano), obviously alter games even more.

It's one thing to say we should just live with the occasional terrible, terrible call (maybe we should). But it's empirically wrong to say they don't matter.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:47 pm 
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I'm consistently on the umps' side by temperament, but the arguments in this thread are convincing me to make an exception for the strike zone:

- Why does it keep shrinking? (That's a rhetorical question; actual question is: Does it have to keep shrinking?)

- If game duration is a problem, isn't enlarging the strike zone back to its rulebook dimensions the simplest and most elegant solution?

- Do we have to just accept on faith that umps don't disproportionately decide games over a long period, or can umpire effects on outcomes be analyzed sabermetrically? (I'm pretty sure the answer here is yes and they have, but I haven't seen it discussed much elsewhere.)

- Some years ago, when umps were charged with calling high strikes (or maybe it was just more strikes), it became a labor issue and then died. Is there no way around that impasse?

Can't shake the feeling that someday a simple and elegant solution will be found to these strike zone dilemmas, and people then will look back and wonder why it wasn't found twenty years earlier.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:10 pm 
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Last week I got the Complete New Yorker and flipped through all the baseball cartoons. Maybe a quarter were about umpires, with many alluding to their poor eyesight.

Bad calls are part of the game. So is complaining about them.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:39 pm 
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The New Yorker is famous, I gather, for cartoons featuring poorly sighted umpires. Many were reprinted in the Fireside Books of Baseball. I recall one with an umpire sporting a black eye, sheepishly exiting through a door marked "Ladies."


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 5:26 pm 
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PunkOnce wrote:
Can't shake the feeling that someday a simple and elegant solution will be found to these strike zone dilemmas, and people then will look back and wonder why it wasn't found twenty years earlier.


Eventually the ball, players, gloves and field will be equipped with sensors.

Tennis has "Cyclops," for the relatively simple judging of serves. Baseball is experimenting with something similar for the strike zone. I'm not sure I favor that.

I prefer the trend of umpires consulting on plays instead of relying on technology. But I dislike when umpires try to be stars.

ADKbrown wrote:
Bad calls are part of the game. So is complaining about them.


Yup. Bitching and moaning is as much a part of baseball as cheering.

Players make errors. Umpires make errors.
Play ball.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:46 am 
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Ummm...dare I bring up the nontag of Yadier Molina that was ruled a tag by Greg Gibson tonight in the fifth inning?

How many more umpires' names will we know before the World Series is over?

Doug Eddings, Phil Cuzzi, Joe West and Greg Gibson, your 15 minutes are up. Be gone with ye.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:04 am 
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wordygurdy wrote:
Ummm...dare I bring up the nontag of Yadier Molina that was ruled a tag by Greg Gibson tonight in the fifth inning?


Greg Gibson was positioned to watch the bag in case they tried to turn a double play. By the time he ruled there was no play at second base, Yadier was right in between him and Everett. True, had it been called right, it would have left the bases loaded with no outs. But keep in mind that every replay that showed conclusive evidence was from an angle that Greg Gibson couldn't see. And Everett sold the out, the sneaky bastard. So I don't blame Gibson.

And this is coming from a Cardinals fan.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 8:30 am 
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Agreed. It was the wrong call, but my first thought was, "I would have gotten that one wrong too."


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:08 am 
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I agree he couldn't see the play. So why not use the video, which made the truth painfully obvious, instantly, to millions of people at home?

Maybe the commissioner could watch the game near television monitors and--like a tennis ump--overrule *obviously* wrong calls in the postseason.

It seems odd to live with a system in which everyone on the planet except the guys on the field know what the right call would have been. (The Eddings call doesn't fall into this category.)


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 11:40 am 
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Nearly every time we watch a game, my wife asks me why managers, coaches and players even bother arguing with umpires. Her follow-up is always "Does arguing ever make a difference?"

At the risk of starting a flame war, I will repeat my answer here.

Yes, sometimes a manager will convince an umpire to ask others on the crew for help on a call and they will hold a brief conference. The ruling is often not in favor of the manager who questioned the call, but it adds a little credibility to some calls.

The other instance is Bobby Cox. He gets thrown out all the time, more often when Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux all pitched for his team. Cox argues balls and strikes all the time, often earning an ejection. Biased as I am, I see his pitchers get borderline calls more than anyone else. Some of my friends agree on this. Did that hurt Maddux and Glavine in their first post-Cox seasons? Draw your own conclusions.

Some instances illustrate a need for an instant replay in baseball. Blown calls on home run balls -- foul or fair -- would be one type of call easily reviewed. Do you have others to suggest? Could it work for questions of trapping a line drive?


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 8:42 am 
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I suspect the purists on this site do not deign to discuss the atrocity of using replay . . .


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 10:19 am 
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I'm coming around to the idea of limited replay review in the postseason. No delays or appeals or coaches' challenges, but as Cthomas suggests, the right of someone in the box to overrule calls on a "clearly erroneous" standard. Perhaps via a remote earpiece in the crew chief's ear. That would not disrupt the game in any way I can think of.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 10:39 am 
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The AP wrote:
WASHINGTON -- Never mind the griping about blown calls on the baseball diamond. Most fans say the umps do a pretty good job.

Eight in 10 of those surveyed in an AP-AOL Sports poll say major league umpires do an excellent or good job. Only 1 percent rated them as poor.

"They do as well as they can. Everybody's human, they make mistakes," said Julie Johnson, a Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies fan who lives in Windsor, Colo.

The survey also showed that 69 percent think the designated hitter rule either should be expanded to both leagues or scrapped. Not surprisingly, American League fans were more likely than National League fans to favor the current system.

"I'd just as soon not see it in either league," said Gary Hartwig, a Cubs fan who lives near Hudson, Iowa. "The manager has fewer decisions to make when there's no pitcher hitting. It makes the game more boring."

A smaller majority does not like the All-Star game determining which team gets home-field advantage in the World Series.

The results come during a postseason that has seen its share of umpire-fueled controversy. The most notable example was Oct. 12 in the American League Championship Series when plate umpire Doug Eddings ruled a third strike had hit the dirt, allowing Chicago White Sox hitter A.J. Pierzynski to scamper to first base.

Replays appeared to show the catcher caught the ball, which would have been the third out. The pinch runner for Pierzynski eventually scored the winning run. The victory was the first of four straight for the White Sox, who advanced to the World Series.

Baseball is the only one of the four "major" sports -- football, basketball and hockey are the others -- that does not use instant replay to aid officials. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said there is no reason to think that will change now.

"There has never been much support for it in the past and I don't believe support for the concept has grown over the last week," he said this week.

The White Sox will have the home-field advantage against the Houston Astros in the World Series, which begins Saturday, by virtue of a rule change backed by Selig. Looking to spur interest in the All-Star game, baseball decided three years ago that the winning league in that game would gain home-field advantage for its representative in the Fall Classic.

The poll found that more than half of fans -- 56 percent -- do not like that change from the old rule, which alternated the home-field advantage from one league to the other each year. The poll conducted by Ipsos, an international polling firm, from Oct. 11-13 surveyed 1,000 adults, including the 394 baseball fans. The questions about baseball's rules were asked only of the fans.

All 1,000 were asked what was the biggest problem in Major League baseball. They were most likely to name player salaries, 29 percent, followed by players' use of steroids, 23 percent, and the cost of attending a game, 22 percent.

Another Selig-supported change -- interleague play, which began in 1997 -- is more popular, with 56 percent of fans favoring pitting National League teams against American League squads during the regular season.

The designated hitter rule, which allows American League teams to substitute a batter for the pitcher, has been controversial since its inception in 1973. Many baseball purists believe the "DH" takes away from the strategy of the game by, among other things, not forcing a manager to decide when to pinch hit for a pitcher.

The survey found 40 percent of fans think neither league should have the rule, while 29 percent say the National League should adopt it and 30 percent said things should stay as they are.

White Sox slugger Frank Thomas, a frequent DH in his later years, thinks the rule is a good idea.

"It's extended many careers. I think it should be universal; it would mean more jobs in baseball," he said. "Who wants to see pitchers hit? Nobody."

Houston Astros manager Phil Garner disagrees.

"There's plenty of offense in the game today," Garner said. "The game has more strategy without the DH, it's a more fun game to be involved in."

Other poll findings: The most popular teams are the New York Yankees, with 12 percent of those surveyed naming the Bronx Bombers as the team they root for during the regular season, and the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves with 11 percent each. Houston was named by 3 percent, while only 1 percent listed the White Sox.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 10:39 am 
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For what it's worth (not much), I was never in my posts in this thread arguing in favor of using instant replay. I was arguing in favor of umpires doing their jobs and getting the calls right.

I think instant replay could be useful, but I can't see Kenesaw Molehill ever implementing anything like that. And I can't imagine the umpires' union standing for it.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 10:44 am 
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I like the way basketball refs have, even when rules didn't allow for it, rushed to courtside monitors to check whether shooters beat the clock. They acknowledge that accuracy is more important than ego.

Officials will make errors. What bothers me is when they won't admit the possibility exists. I like the trend toward consulting other umpires.

I especially hate when umpires flaunt their power after a bad call. Provoking arguments just makes the situation worse. Pointedly strutting near the dugout between innings to bait a manager is wrong. Holding a grudge against a player or team is wrong.

The purist in me wonders about having different standards for the season and the postseason. But we already put two more umpires on the field during postseason games. And TV already provides more camera views during the postseason for instant replays.

The fan in me would like to see mistakes corrected if it can be done quickly.

Fans have more fun than purists. Baseball is a game. Cthomas and Matthew have me reconsidering instant replay.


Last edited by Wayne Countryman on Fri Oct 21, 2005 10:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 10:51 am 
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wordygurdy wrote:
For what it's worth (not much), I was never in my posts in this thread arguing in favor of using instant replay. I was arguing in favor of umpires doing their jobs and getting the calls right.


The thing is, I don't think any umpire could have gotten the Adam Everett-Yadier Molina call at second base in Game 6 of the NLCS correct. At best, it would be 50/50. He did his job as best as it could be done under the circumstances.

Umpires are human beings without X-ray vision. He simply had to guess and guessed wrong. It is for that sort of call only -- where the umpire had no viable view and the replay was conclusive -- that I'd be amenable to replay review. It would have been a simple matter for anyone in the booth to flip a switch and say into a bug in the crew chief's ear: "Hey, he was clearly safe, the call is overruled." And the fans would barely notice a delay.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 11:11 am 
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Matthew Grieco wrote:
The thing is, I don't think any umpire could have gotten the Adam Everett-Yadier Molina call at second base in Game 6 of the NLCS correct. At best, it would be 50/50. He did his job as best as it could be done under the circumstances.


The biggest gripe managers and players have is when umpires are out of position. Sometimes, as during this play, the "proper" position becomes one that doesn't work. Did the umpires at first or third have better angles?

I don't want to see blue huddles after every baserunning play. I don't want to see managers running on the field five times an inning to demand a conference. But just as the plate ump can cede a call on a check swing to an ump at first or third, there shouldn't be a stigma if a call on the bases or foul lines is changed quickly at the suggestion of someone with a better angle. This could be done in seconds.

Yes, fielders want calls made immediately if other runners are between bases. That's a flaw in this idea. But most of the time that's not a factor.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 11:40 am 
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Wayne Countryman wrote:
The biggest gripe managers and players have is when umpires are out of position. Sometimes, as during this play, the "proper" position becomes one that doesn't work. Did the umpires at first or third have better angles?


Matthew, Wayne makes part of my point for me. In the case of the Yadier Molina/Everett call, the first base umpire, Tim McClelland, had a great view of that play and as the crew chief should have overruled Gibson. McClelland was running from first base toward second, and his legs and lower torso are visible in one of the replay shots.

That's just one instance, though. (I am surprised that Nikko wasn't more upset. After all, the Cards were trailing by three at the time, and that call if made correctly would have resulted in the bases being loaded with no one out in an elimination game for the Cardinals. Who knows what would have happened then?) Throughout this postseason, the umpires have been awful.

Again, it's not to say that the losing teams would have won. It's just that all the umpires have to do is make calls correctly, and they should be able to do that much more often than they have been this postseason.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 12:21 pm 
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OK, guys, break up this confab and let's play ball.

I hate to say it, Wordy, but you seem to be a lone wolf in proclaiming that the umpiring has been atrocious. All the evidence suggests that there has been a small amount of human error, on a par with a muffed ground ball or a hanging slider.

The fact that we can mention only a handful of egregious errors in the playoffs going back 20 years suggests there is no crisis.

It seems like we're trying to create controversy just to introduce the idea of instant replay. The game is fine without it. If the umpiring did become a problem, then the analogy here to a tennis umpire is a very good one. You would have a veteran umpire (not the commissioner) up in the booth with the authority to make quick over-rules of obviously missed calls. And you would need it only for the playoffs.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 1:04 pm 
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Now let's--using non-video methods--get the strike zone consistent, including the high strikes.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 2:14 pm 
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jjmoney62 wrote:
I hate to say it, Wordy, but you seem to be a lone wolf in proclaiming that the umpiring has been atrocious.


I'd call it nearly atrocious. And as a Red Sox fan, I didn't really have a team to challenge my objectivity during the playoffs.

As for the strike zone problem: I'd hoped that having umpires work both leagues would help. It hasn't; instead of players having to adjust during the World Series, they have to adjust daily, beginning in April.

MLB fired a bunch of strong-willed umps a few years ago (though competence wasn't the issue). We still have this cult of personality among the blue--each is allowed to have his "own" strike zone. OK, during a game batters and pitchers can, to some extent, compensate for that. But the inconsistency during games makes the problem worse.

Still, I'd rather watch the Series opener than college football.

Play ball.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 3:30 pm 
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Wayne Countryman wrote:
as a Red Sox fan, I didn't really have a team to challenge my objectivity during the playoffs.


Me too. Did you see the WSJ piece about how the Red Sox may have been shafted by the umpires that they drew for their Series? The thesis was that the Sox happened to draw the three or four umps with the biggest strike zones in the league. Many Sox hitters have good eyes, and often draw walks, but the big strike zones nullified that advantage, and suppressed the Sox's awesome offense besides.

I can't evaluate the theory . . . just passing it on!


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 5:00 pm 
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Cthomas wrote:
Did you see the WSJ piece about how the Red Sox may have been shafted by the umpires that they drew for their Series? The thesis was that the Sox happened to draw the three or four umps with the biggest strike zones in the league. Many Sox hitters have good eyes, and often draw walks, but the big strike zones nullified that advantage, and suppressed the Sox's awesome offense besides.


Didn't read the WSJ piece, but I can see the point. The umps tended to have a bigger zone than last season's. But they seemed more consistent than those in other series this month.

I grew up thinking the strike zone extended from the shoulders to the knees, and exactly the width of the plate. That's not even close to how games are called now.

Some teams say the Red Sox get breaks from many umps because of their reputation, the way the Yankees did when they were more selective at the plate. There were such complaints in the series with the Angels.

The team didn't last long enough to determine a definite trend. They didn't suffer from horrible calls the way other teams have.

The Red Sox lost for bigger reasons than the umps--pitching being one of them.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 5:12 pm 
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wordygurdy wrote:
(I am surprised that Nikko wasn't more upset. After all, the Cards were trailing by three at the time, and that call if made correctly would have resulted in the bases being loaded with no one out in an elimination game for the Cardinals. Who knows what would have happened then?)


Even with the play called as it was, we still had men on first and third with one out. The fact of the matter is, Roy Oswalt was mowing batters down in that game. Maybe a bases-loaded situation would have made him flustered enough to hang one out there, but as I recall, he got the last batter in that inning to look at strike three. He was on his game, and our bats were doing a better job as shoulder ornaments. Men on first and third isn't the most optimal situation for a pitcher, either (and, yes, I was screaming at my TV when the call was made and replayed, but I quickly got over it when the next two batters popped out to right field and struck out looking, respectively). The Cardinals could not hit Roy Oswalt in Game 6. Maybe having bases loaded would have swung the momentum enough for John Rodriguez to lay off the hard high ones. Maybe not. There's no use guessing what might have been.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 5:19 pm 
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ndugan1 wrote:
There's no use guessing what might have been.

I was gonna post earlier that the call ultimately didn't affect the scoring, but I clutched because it doesn't work that way. Bases loaded and nobody out is an entirely different situation than first and third and one out, and while we could speculate over strategies, there's no way we can know the mental effects of any situation on the players involved. Some would thrive on the additional pressure, others would shy away from it, still others wouldn't react any differently. You just can't predict.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 6:04 pm 
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Wayne Countryman wrote:
The Red Sox lost for bigger reasons than the umps--pitching being one of them.


No doubt. What a falloff from what might have been. As a last point on this whole umping thing--it was fortunate the umps caught that A-Rod "slap" in the ACLS last season (the intentional interference call at first). If they'd blown that, I would not be a mild proponent of instant replay but a raving zealot.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 6:51 pm 
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Cthomas wrote:
As a last point on this whole umping thing--it was fortunate the umps caught that A-Rod "slap" in the ACLS last season (the intentional interference call at first). If they'd blown that, I would not be a mild proponent of instant replay but a raving zealot.


So when Chuck Knoblauch made that phantom tag at second base of Jose Offerman in the 1999 ALCS, you were in Raving Zealot mode?


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 9:05 pm 
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Hah! I'd forgotten that. (2004 washed it away.)

It came in first in one poll of worst calls ever, in any sport.


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