By now, if you are a baseball fan or a watcher of Sportscenter, you have heard about THE CALL. Of course I mean the safe call made by Jim Joyce on the 9th inning 2 out 1-1 pitch hit into the hole between 1st and 2nd...did I mention that if Joyce had gotten that call correct the pitcher, someone whom I had never heard of named Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers, would have had a perfect game? I know I didn't, but you get my point. Now to the credit of Jim Joyce he went and reviewed the tape after the game was over, realized his mistake and went to Galarraga to personally apologize for costing him a shot at history. This of course raises the question of, 'well what if the umpiring crew, or some other entity, had the ability to check that call in game'?
I am not a believer in completely scrubbing the human aspect of baseball, but I can understand the argument that can be made for instituting a call review policy for close calls as well as for home run calls. We cannot expect the umpires to be perfect everytime, and to be honest I don't want perfect umpires...but when there are extraordinary situations in a baseball game (like the play that could seal a perfect game) I think there should be some sort of avenue available to the umpires, or some sort of reviewing entity, to make sure that the human element of umpires does not get in the way of potentially history making moments.
I do realize that this presents a slippery slope because this then calls into question other aspects of the game like balls and strikes and whether or not that should fall under review. To be quite honest I don't have an answer for that question just yet.
On the topic of umpires and how they handle mistakes. BRAVO to Jim Joyce for owning up and apologizing. There has been a rash of horrible umpiring of late, Bob Davidson, Joe West and Bill Hohn come to mind. Bob Davidson for his defense of his horrible strike zone calling and subsequently ejecting Carl Crawford and Joe Maddon, Joe West for being the old curmudgeon and being rude to Ozzie Guillen and then ejecting Mark Buehrle (one of the most mild mannered people in the game) for "throwing equipment", and then Bill Hohn for throwing Roy Oswalt (another mild mannered man in the game) out while Oswalt was saying "I ain't talking to you" repeatedly. These three cases that I highlighted don't involve mistakes per se, but they do highlight what has become an issue in umpiring, the evolution of the "all-mighty umpire".
There are other names that come to mind as umpires with attitude, Hunter Wendelstedt, Chris Guiccione (who has been better of late, walking away after ejecting Lou Pinella last year showed some improvement), Greg Gibson, Jerry Crawford (he creates ejection opportunities in my opinion) and I bet there are a few more. Umpires need to remember that their job is not to incite an argument, nor is it their job to let someone argue until the cows come home. Letting someone have their piece, without provocation, should be ok. Of course if overuse of obscenities or a protracted argument ensue, appropriate action should be taken, but that action should not be taken if the umpire helped to create the situation. The umpire is supposed to be the bigger man on the field. I think everyone wants to see them actually live up to that.
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