|
Last night I was talking to Round Rock broadcaster Mike Capps about how few players I’ve seen at double-A and triple-A who are good at drawing walks. He postulated that the hitters don’t trust the umpires to call a ball a ball, so they swing at everything. “The umpires are just so inconsistent down here,” he said.
That caught my attention because I’ve seen six minor league games this summer, and have only seen one homeplate umpire that missed more calls than what I would call “normal.” The major league umpires miss a lot of calls too. When the major league umpires were on strike several years ago, I couldn’t tell that the replacement umps were any worse than the strikers.
When I was broadcasting every day (before I took the manager’s job) I thought the homeplate umps were pretty bad. Then when I went down to the dugout, it seemed like they were a lot better. It turned out it was just the difference in my vantage point. After I had a seizure in 1999 and had to sit out and watch it on TV for a month, I couldn’t believe how bad the ball and strike calls were. Seeing it from the dugout, you can’t tell where the corner is. When a pitch is clearly high or low you can see it. But the umps didn’t miss many high or low pitches. The corner pitches were a different story.
I believe the umpires give a good effort day in and day out. I have simply come to the conclusion that calling balls and strikes is more difficult when you are standing behind the catcher than when you are sitting at home watching TV. Think about it. If the umpire misses one call every half inning, he misses 18 in the game. Because most games have 250 or more pitches, the number of missed calls is a very low percentage of all the calls. But, even in a sample of 18 out of 250, missed calls can have a major impact on who wins or loses maybe one game a week. That’s a lot!
In an effort to get all the umpires to have a consistent (rather than their own) strike zone, MLB has put a Questec system in a dozen ballparks. Using cameras and triangulation, this system can call a consistent zone. It is used to evaluate and instruct the men in blue. Why don’t they just make it easier and better for the umps and the hitters and pitchers by just using the technology to call the game? An umpire could have a buzzer in each back pocket and if he gets buzzed on the left, it’s a ball. If he feels it on the right, it’s a strike. The homeplate umpire would still have a lot of other calls to make and the umpires would still have to call “ball” or “strike” on checked swings.
Generally speaking, I am against using replays to make calls in all sports. My preference is to make the call and get on with the game. But, I get so mad watching baseball that I would favor using technology, if the system was proven to be accurate, because it would be fair to both hitters and pitchers and wouldn’t affect the flow of the game. |
