Baseball umpires

[real fan]

I watch a lot of baseball and I have to say that the umpires keep getting worse every year, most will not call a high strike and the base umpires stand in one spot instead of hustling when a play is being made and get themself in the right position to make a call which is why so many calls have been wrong, their arrogance is a disgrace to the game and their profession.

[tornado]

I watch a lot of baseball and I have to say that the umpires keep getting worse every year...

what I think is that there may be some truth to that but...
actually I think umps have been making bad calls and missing or getting incorrect as many as 25% of all the close calls for years -- even for decades..
it's just the facts (see below **)...but now we see how often it is because all the sports now have something they didn't have before --
ultra-slo-mo replay on every single play.




**everyone knows that a movie is NOT a continuously moving scene, but instead a series of usually 24 separate still pictures per second being cast on the screen, right?
So how come the human eye and brain sees 24 separate pictures as one continuously moving scene?
Because the eye works in a manner, that any light hitting the retina, then takes about 1/20th of a second to reset the chemicals before being able to see again...so as long as those separate frames in the movie change faster than 20 per second, no human eye can see that it's actually just still pictures...it looks like "normal", continuous activity...

BUT -- if your eye sees something moving fast..like a fastball at 80-90 mph, then do you know, that you don't really see it all the way to the plate...
you instead see it as a single image in the brain every 1/20th of a second, and your brain "fills in" the images so your mind thinks you've seen every part of the trajectory of the moving ball -- but you haven't...

thus, any fast moving action becomes just a little less possible even for the most astute eyes and mind to be sure of...there's ALWAYS a certain probablility of getting your conclusion wrong no matter how sure you think you saw it.
How many times have you thought you saw a play one way, then the ultra slo-mo (which has upwards of 200 frames per second) allows you to see you got it wrong the first time when you saw it in real time? -- in other words -- your "mind played a trick on you".
But this is the limit of human ability that umps have to deal with .. and it'll never be solved when calling bang-bang plays and fast/instantaneous action, unless all the close plays are reviewed on slo-mo, something that I think nobody really wants.
I think this also accounts for all the missed "off sides" calls we saw in the World Cup.

[real fan]

I believe the main reason why there have been so many wrong calls is they are out of position to make the calls , home plte umpires also miss so many ball/strike calls because they do not set up in the middle of home plate but choose to be on an angle which in turn gives then a distorted view. Go back to the old balloon chest protectors if you are afraid of getting hurt by being in the middle of the plate.

[Future Walk-On]

baseball isn't even a real sport.

[Chico]

baseball isn't even a real sport.

Typical FWO post, doesn't make sense.

[real fan]

Typical FWO post, doesn't make sense.

Your right in that it makes no sense, he obviously never or could not play the game due to a lack of talent.

[Future Walk-On]

LOL.

I watched more baseball this season than you would think possible....and stopped after high school when I could have played in college.

I am just gloomy because my cardinals are also watching the playoffs on TV.

[houstontxbrave]

I believe the main reason why there have been so many wrong calls is they are out of position to make the calls , home plte umpires also miss so many ball/strike calls because they do not set up in the middle of home plate but choose to be on an angle which in turn gives then a distorted view. Go back to the old balloon chest protectors if you are afraid of getting hurt by being in the middle of the plate.

I used to do a lot of umpiring and it is just very difficult to see anything if you are not set up to the left or right of the catcher, that of course is dictated by the side of the plate the hitter sets up. If you sit over his head, your not going to see anything other then pitches well that are at eye level and your guessing on anything at waist level or lower.

Now the truth is, it is even at a high school level, often a guess, when you set up inside and see anything on the outside part of the plate. But, if you are doing it long enough you know if a pitch is on or off the plate.

I sincerely believe MLB just does not want anything belt high or higher called a strike. It is a driveable pitch for most hitters but if it is called a strike consistantly it could lead to even more pitcher friendly games. And pitcher friendly games are not what sell advertising, runs and the more the merrier.

Right now the pitcher gets knees to belt and for the most part the plate a pretty small square to work in, batters get everything else and many batters get the inside part of the plate. If Steriods have to be removed, then something has to be done to give hitters a better chance of scoring more runs. Squeezing a strike zone is a great way of producing more baserunners and scoring opportunities. Advertisers love runs scored. Not 2-1 games.

Chest to knees may be written in the rules but I can never remember that being an actual MLB strike zone.

[real fan]

I used to do a lot of umpiring and it is just very difficult to see anything if you are not set up to the left or right of the catcher, that of course is dictated by the side of the plate the hitter sets up. If you sit over his head, your not going to see anything other then pitches well that are at eye level and your guessing on anything at waist level or lower.

Now the truth is, it is even at a high school level, often a guess, when you set up inside and see anything on the outside part of the plate. But, if you are doing it long enough you know if a pitch is on or off the plate.

I sincerely believe MLB just does not want anything belt high or higher called a strike. It is a driveable pitch for most hitters but if it is called a strike consistantly it could lead to even more pitcher friendly games. And pitcher friendly games are not what sell advertising, runs and the more the merrier.

Right now the pitcher gets knees to belt and for the most part the plate a pretty small square to work in, batters get everything else and many batters get the inside part of the plate. If Steriods have to be removed, then something has to be done to give hitters a better chance of scoring more runs. Squeezing a strike zone is a great way of producing more baserunners and scoring opportunities. Advertisers love runs scored. Not 2-1 games.

Chest to knees may be written in the rules but I can never remember that being an actual MLB strike zone.

You are suppose to call the game by the rule book, no excuses plus steroids had nothing to do with hitting a baseball, only how far they were being hit, calling pitches strikes that are a good 12inches wide of the plate makes it impossible for the batter to hit, high strikes over the plate are hittable, that is what the trouble with society today is there are inexcusable excuses for everything , if the rules state chest to the knees then that is the correct way , if they don"t like it then change the rule.

[tornado]

You are suppose to call the game by the rule book,...

in the ideal situation, yes...
but seriously, in almost every sport it is accepted that the refs or umps have a little leeway..
for example, in basketball, there's contact all the time that could be a foul, but the refs let it go, there's guys in lane 3 seconds all the time, but it's called only rarely, and that high screen and palming only get called once in a while to "police" or "clean up" the game..
..but I do agree with you that some umps call a "custom" strike zone that even varies from pitcher to pitcher...Joe West & Phil Cuzzi are classic examples..

http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2010/05/27/does-umpire-joe-west-have-a-conflict-of-interest/

http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2008/04/08/ozzie-guillen-in-mid-season-form/

[houstontxbrave]

You are suppose to call the game by the rule book, no excuses plus steroids had nothing to do with hitting a baseball, only how far they were being hit, calling pitches strikes that are a good 12inches wide of the plate makes it impossible for the batter to hit, high strikes over the plate are hittable, that is what the trouble with society today is there are inexcusable excuses for everything , if the rules state chest to the knees then that is the correct way , if they don"t like it then change the rule.

Steroids had everything to do with Home Runs and runs being scored. Regardless baseball was a whole lot more interesting when guys were bombing 500 ft home runs and the games were 12-9. Attendance has declined in the last 3 years, so has runs scored and certainly home runs and I would venture that interest overall n baseball is in a decline.

My belief is MLB knew about steroids and wanted them in the game so these guys would get huge and hit home runs and bring eyes back to the game after the strike.

Calling balls a foot off the plate isnt happening, yes guys get calls a few inches off the plate and yes others get preference on the strike zone.

You do realize that if you are going to call strikes from the chest to knee that a chest high strike on a guy lets say like Thome who is 6'5 the catcher is likely going to have to stand up to catch it. What in the world is that going to look like when you have the catcher standing up and you have an umpire calling that pitch a strike?

Calling the high strike is not impossible but it is very close when an umpire is located behind a catcher to the left or right shoulder. Umpires do not stand straight up they move down and are taught not to move until the pitch is completed. It is very difficult to determine the location of a pitch that is up if the catcher reaches up and your eyes also move up.

Your right on your orginal post about the old chest protectors, if your sitting above the catcher in a more standing position it will be easier to call the high strike... but then how hard would it be to determine location on a pitch at the knees?

Honestly the best place to put an umpire on at or near the pitchers mound. From that location you can tell location both on the plate and up or down... that is not going to happen. So bottom line is the high strike will never be called consistantly, for a variety of reasons.