October 27, 2009

Umpiring Baseball

Blown Calls by Mike Jaret

Personally I have umpired baseball for around 12 years of my life. I mostly did little league baseball and a little bit of highschool and above. For a little while I actually umpired some minor league professional spring training baseball...

and let me tell ya, umpiring pros is really fucking hard. I respect what umpires do on a daily basis and I wish I would have pushed myself far enough to possibly become a pro ump. BUT, that doesn’t make up for the junky ass umpiring that I have seen this post-season. Throughout the seasons TONS of blown calls sway the outcome of games and go mostly unnoticed by the gen-pop. During the postseason every blown call is amplified. Last season, Commision Douchebag (Bud Selig), implemented an instant replay process for homerun calls. He did it poorly by implementing it MIDSEASON and not having a very quick process for reviews. Everything there is a review, the umps first convene, then 3 of them head into the home clubhouse to watch and decide. This process has taken in the upwards of 10 minutes and is an awful slowdown for a game that needs to be sped up.

Personally I am of the opinion that a) there should be a fifth (and in the postseason an 7th) off field “REVIEW” umpire that is watching monitors for every play. This would eliminate the 10 minutes it takes to review. This is how hockey does it for questionable goals and USUALLY tends to be a fairly quick process (with a couple of quirks). You could give a manager a red flag, similar to football, and he could get two challenges a game. Also similar to football, NON JUDGEMENT calls, could be autoreviewed by the off-field official (fair/foul balls down the line, runner leaving too early, etc..), and on judgement calls the manager could throw his flag. The review would already have taken place and the ump responsible for the call AND the crew chief could convene with the off field official to determine the call. If the play is reversed no harm no foul, if it is upheld maybe you penalize the team that threw the flag with an out (similar to football).

Being a former umpire and calling for instant replay is a hard thing to do, but fuckin a... some of the most well respected umpires in the game have made some of the most BONEHEADED calls this postseason. Thankfully none of these blown calls have actually impacted the outcome of the games, but its awful to watch on such a monumental stage.

And now the biggest blown call I have ever seen:

Personally I have umpired baseball for around 12 years of my life. I mostly did little league baseball and a little bit of highschool and above. For a little while I actually umpired some minor league professional spring training baseball and let me tell ya, umpiring pros is really fucking hard. I respect what umpires do on a daily basis and I wish I would have pushed myself far enough to possibly become a pro ump. BUT, that doesn’t make up for the junky ass umpiring that I have seen this post-season. Throughout the seasons TONS of blown calls sway the outcome of games and go mostly unnoticed by the gen-pop. During the postseason every blown call is amplified. Last season, Commision Douchebag (Bud Selig), implemented an instant replay process for homerun calls. He did it poorly by implementing it MIDSEASON and not having a very quick process for reviews. Everything there is a review, the umps first convene, then 3 of them head into the home clubhouse to watch and decide. This process has taken in the upwards of 10 minutes and is an awful slowdown for a game that needs to be sped up.

Personally I am of the opinion that a) there should be a fifth (and in the postseason an 7th) off field “REVIEW” umpire that is watching monitors for every play. This would eliminate the 10 minutes it takes to review. This is how hockey does it for questionable goals and USUALLY tends to be a fairly quick process (with a couple of quirks). You could give a manager a red flag, similar to football, and he could get two challenges a game. Also similar to football, NON JUDGEMENT calls, could be autoreviewed by the off-field official (fair/foul balls down the line, runner leaving too early, etc..), and on judgement calls the manager could throw his flag. The review would already have taken place and the ump responsible for the call AND the crew chief could convene with the off field official to determine the call. If the play is reversed no harm no foul, if it is upheld maybe you penalize the team that threw the flag with an out (similar to football).

Being a former umpire and calling for instant replay is a hard thing to do, but fuckin a…some of the most well respected umpires in the game have made some of the most BONEHEADED calls this postseason. Thankfully none of these blown calls have actually impacted the outcome of the games, but its awful to watch on such a monumental stage.

And now the biggest blown call I have ever seen:

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