Are you Smarter than an Umpire?

I thought long and hard, and by long and hard I mean I had a brief passing thought but decided against it, to adding what I am about to say to the end of my previous post. While they share a common thread, the ever pressing issue of bad calls made by MLB Umpires, my previous blog was more my own personal rantings of one particular game, where as the issue as a whole deserves it's own spotligt on my wonderful blog that I'm sure no one is actually reading.

It's an age-old issue, should Major League Baseball rely on the use of Instant Replay in more aspects of the game? For the first time in history, America's Favorite Pastime actually allowed the use of this "new" technology during the 2009 season however it was limited to questionable home run calls. For any of us who are true baseball fans, we know that there are a lot more calls that are just as important other than home runs that happen a lot more often. I believe it's rare that a home run call is questionable which is exactly why I am okay with MLB using Instant Replay in this case. It doesn't happen very often so it really isn't going to extend games or mess with the purity of the game. However, if MLB were to expand the Instant Replay to the multiple plays on the bases that happen every day ranging from "caught stealing" to leaving the bag early to close plays at home plate, I then will be upset and truly feel that the purity of the game is being tainted. It honestly could just get ridiculous. It may start with the few examples I mentioned above, but then what? Will they start using it on check swings? Balls and strikes? "Oh he went around, no he didn't, let's check instant replay!" "That was a ball, no it wasn't, ok let's check the instant replay using the strike zone tracker (name changes depending on what chanel is broadcasting the game)" That's just not how baseball works. In the words of Ernie Harwell "Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic." While Harwell is most likely talking about the players, I believe that the "failing" part can apply to the umpires as well. That's what baseball is about folks. It's the only way we can keep the purity of the game alive.
Now onto the part about the umpires. Peope are campaigning for Instant Replay because of a pathetic display by the umpires in the 2009 post season. The most recent of these included 3 bad calls during game 4 of the ALCS which you can read about in my previous blog. While none of these calls truly affected the end result of this particular game, I do understand people's concern as this is a possibility in the future. HOWEVER! Based on my previous paragraph, you can tell that I am not a fan of any expansion with Instant Replay in baseball. If the problem is the umpires, then, light bulb, the problem is the *gasp* UMPIRES! I haven't done any research on how to become an umpire so unfortunately (for myself but probably fortunately for anyone reading this) I can't elaborate too much, but I think we need to chase the problem to the root of it all, how umpires get to the majors. Instead of Instant Replay, do what needs to be done to make sure only the best of the best get to the majors, and earn your "stripes" to get to ump a post season game! Even if you're already a well respected umpire, if you make a big mistake in a game or more than one big mistake in a game, there should be some sort of punishment or probation. I found an atricle How to Become an Umpire that says umpires must make their way through the farm system much like the players. If a player is slumping, they get benched, right? If an umpire seems to be messing up a lot of calls, make him go back to school, or at least make him watch High School Musical and get some tips from the Wildcats like "Get Your Head in the Game"
 
So in summary, MLB doesn't need Instant Replay, they just need to send their umpires back to school. In the words of Jeff Foxworthy "It's not about how smart you are, it's about how dumb you've become" or something along those lines.

Yankees Win Fair and Square

So if you're following the Major League Baseball post season, you're probably familiar with the controversy regarding some important missed calls thus far in 2009 October baseball. Since this is my first official blog post, I won't discuss stale news but rather focus on the freshest material which occured in last night's ALCS game which featured the Yankees and Angels. While I bleed pinstripe blue, I like to believe that I can be un-biased and fairly assess controversial plays. For example, when Swisher was caught with his pants down leading off second base and was called SAFE, after watching re-plays, he was clearly out by a foot. Now the Angels had every right to be upset about this call but thankfully they can't say this shifted the momentum of the game in any way. That very same inning, Swisher was on third and scored on a sac fly but the Angels said that he left the bag too early and Swisher was then called out. After watching that re-play, Swisher obviously did NOT leave the bag early and while this bad call cost the Yankees a run that inning, I was actually happy because Swisher was already supposed to be out and now the Angels can't say that we received any freebies. Now I wish I could say that is all and that's the end but alas there was one more bizarre play that resulted in yet another umpire mistake. This particular incident occurred shortly after Posada failed to score on a Robinson Cano double when he was already at 2nd base! While Cano seemed quite irritated that Jorge failed to give him a post season RBI, you have to give Posada a pass for falling for Tori Hunter's Oscar award winning performance pretending that he was actually going to catch the ball out in center field even though it ended up going WAY over his head. So while Posada remained on third, with Cano hot on his heels at second, a weak squibber was hit in the in-field, thrown to the plate and this time Posada was the one caught with his pants down in-between third base and home. Cano, who had been itching to move up a base had already arrived safely at third base while Posada retreated back to the same bag that Cano now occupied like some weird version of 4-corners. Well if you weren't watching you would think "Well hey this happens sometimes, Posada is out, Cano is safe." I'm sure that would have been the case if Cano wasn't daydreaming about RBI's and lollipops in Candyland and had completely stepped OFF the bag at which point he allowed himself along with Posada to get tagged out. Now in all fairness to Tim Mcclelland, he probably assumed the former and gave Cano and Yankees a BIG break. Now we all know what happens when you assume and while Halo fans were probably livid at yet another umpire mistake that favored the Bronx Bombers, the Angels once again got out of the inning, no harm, no foul. The Yankees went on to win 10-1 without any help of "bad calls" from the men in blue and all is once again right in the world (at least if you're a Yankees fan).