It’s unfortunate that such a thrilling post-season has to be tainted with bad umpiring. Not to take away from the rather exhilarating World Series, but really – aren’t these guys supposed to be the best of the best? The amount of blown calls in such an important time for baseball is ridiculous.
It may be time to do away with the modern umpire.
Now, I’m not saying get rid of them entirely, not at all. The umpire is such an icon of the sport of baseball that it would be sacrilegious to do something like that. I just think its time that umpiring takes more of a step into the technological era that we’re in today.
The incident that a lot of people are pointing to this post-season as one of the worst calls thus far was the play at third base during Game 4 of the ALCS.
Both Jorge Posada and Robinson Cano were a foot off the base when they were tagged. The footage of that play shows it – both of them should have been out. It was easy to see, and shouldn’t have been a difficult play to call. The third base umpire, Tim McClelland, only called one of them out. McClelland has been umpiring longer than I’ve been alive and is rather highly regarded. If he, of all the umpires out there, is botching a call in that way in such an important game, maybe it’s time to expand the use of replay.
That was only one of several missed calls this post-season. We’ve had fair balls – balls that were fair by several feet – called foul (Game 2 of the Yankees-Twins Division Series). We’ve had players called out that should have been safe (Nick Swisher in the same ALCS game I mentioned earlier).
This is absolutely unacceptable. We’ve got the highest-caliber players on the field. We’ve got the highest-caliber coaching on the bench. Why don’t we have the highest-caliber calls being made accordingly?
It’s not as if we don’t have the technology to fix this. We’ve got the use of instant replay already in place, but that’s only been used to call whether a home run was fair or foul. I don’t see a real reason why we can’t expand the use of replay – to see whether someone was safe or not or to call a ball fair or foul down the line. I don’t see why managers can’t request the use of replay during a game.
We see managers get up in the umpire’s face all the time, and as entertaining as it can be (Lou Piniella, I’m looking at you), it never really accomplishes anything. The umpire never changes his call. If the umpire was required to go back and look at replay footage, then they might actually see they made a mistake.
Would it slow the game down? Yeah, probably a little bit. But the game’s already been slowed down immensely from where it was 30 years ago due to the way television networks run things. I don’t think being able to use replay once or twice a game per request of a manager would impact things a whole lot.
You’d have people complain that it would take the “human element” out of the game. I think it needs to be taken out of umpiring. As humans, we all have our bias toward certain things. And as much as the umpires may try to be unbiased, we know they all have their favorites like we do. Technology needs to be integrated into baseball for the sake of the sport.
If it means more plays get called right, wouldn’t that be worth it?
UPDATE 11/5:
Well, the Yankees won the World Series. I am neither surprised nor disappointed in the outcome. It was predictable, but should the Phillies have pushed it to a Game 7 and won, I'd be saying the same thing about them.
I like Hideki Matsui as the World Series MVP. There's not a whole lot to complain about there - he performed spectacularly the whole series and set a record last night as well. He's the first designated hitter to win that title, and the first Japanese player as well. I've got a Japanese friend (having lived on an international floor in Residence Tower last year), and he's absolutely thrilled to pieces. It's all over the news there.
However, I was pulling for Chase Utley until the end. He certainly made a strong bid for the MVP title, and I think he would have been equally deserving of it. There's only been one player who was named MVP who played for the losing team - Bobby Richardson in 1960. The Pirates played the Yankees and won, and Richardson, a Yankee, went home with the MVP trophy. It would have been very interesting if Utley went home with the title.
It was certainly a series worth watching. The weather held out and both teams fought to the very end. One wasn't absolutely dominant over the other - it was truly a competition.
Now that the World Series is over, it's time to start looking at 2010. The Winter Meetings will arrive soon enough, and then Spring Training not long after that. Pitchers and catchers report in what, just over a hundred days? I hope you're as ready as I am.
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The second reason, mostly pertaining to the World Series games, is the experience of the officials. Yes, these are the best officials MLB has, but they were not the elite officials. Many of the elite officials elected to not participate in the playoffs for the sole reason that there would be issues about instant replays. Thus, there were less experienced umpires on the field and were bound to make bad calls.
The third reason is the mixing of different umpire crews. During the regular season, umpires stick with the same crew and crew chief the entire season unless due to illness. You are mixing several different umpire crews together and telling them to know everything about that umpires' style of officiating. They need to know what nonverbal signals they need to know, who was what responsibilities in certain situations, etc.
The final reason is simply human error. Like everyone else, officials make mistakes. It may be because they are positioned poorly on the field or are being obstructed from having a good vantage point, or they simply could see it. The only reason why we noticed all of these blown calls this postseason was because instant replays were already such an issue to begin with and the media over emphasized this issue.
That leaves the hypothetical question you raised: "If it means more plays get called right, wouldn't that be worth it?" The answer is no, for the sole reason that you are destroying everything that an official possesses. By implementing instant replay, you are damaging their confidence, and will be more susceptible to making any call on the field that isn't obvious. Instant replay doesn't belong in every sport, and baseball is one of those sports.