BASEBALL 2014: The Umpire Is (NOT) Always Right

April 21, 2014
By: O. J. Cunningham

9.02
(a) Any umpire's decision which involves judgment, such as, but not limited to, whether a batted ball is fair or foul, whether a pitch is a strike or a ball, or whether a runner is safe or out, is final.

No player, manager, coach or substitute shall object to any such judgment decisions.

I admit I have a serious case of Spring Fever -- Make that Detroit Tiger Fever.

I watch Tiger Baseball whenever the opportunity arises.

I'm intrigued by the fact that Jim Leyland has been replaced as manager by the "guy who has never managed before" -- Brad Ausmus. (OK, Maybe he managed in Israel.)

Or maybe, I'm just relieved as you are, that the Polar Vortex(s) of the past winter are behind us.

I spent a good part of Easter weekend watching the Tigers-Angels battle on TV at Detroit Tiger Stadium.

What I saw, was that the Umpire is hardly ever right -- specifically if there is a sliding base runner and a tag to the leg by a defensive player.

In consecutive innings, I saw two different umpires call a sliding runner "OUT." (Once on Miggy at third base and then an inning later at second base.)

Both plays were "challenged" by the appropriate Manager . . . and the calls were subsequently "over-turned" using Instant Replay.

Part of me is glad that "the right call" prevailed . . . Yet, I'm uneasy how quickly and expediently (even, efficiently) the calls on the field were reversed.

I guess the way my dad raised me --- "The umpire is always right" --- is no longer the standard inside the chalked foul lines of baseball.

Don't you wish you could get a replay after a social blunder ... and maybe see where it all went wrong. (All I did was try to buy her a drink. -- Why did that guy hit me?)

Or after a sales call, when you didn't get the order. (When did it go badly? Price too high? Promises too low?)

Or after a fight with your spouse --- It might be easy on replay to see where things went badly.

I know of an easy half-dozen sporting instances where "I was robbed" by the call of an umpire. I've carried the baggage of these umpire failures for decades and still (to this day) can never know the truth of the moment.

Funny thing . . . I think I've always felt that "not knowing" was just part of the sporting process. It was kinda beat into my skull over the years. i just accepted it.

"The ump is always right."

"What goes around, comes around."

Over the course of a season, "it'll all even out."

Now, I'm not so sure.

Now I think maybe I got cheated by not having replay. I think I have the right to know. I want to see the replay. No . . . I demand to see the replay.

I want closure!

Seriously!!

Hey? . . . Al Evans? . . . I wanna see the replay at home plate in 1961. I wanna know if umpire Jerry Hoffman got it right.

I wonder . . . If my life would have been any different if the replay showed I was safe?