In Sunday's excellent Pioneer League game here, the Mustangs got a break when the umpire missed a call at third base.
It wasn't entirely the umpire's fault. In a two-umpire game, there's no way that the base umpire can always be in the best position to make all of the calls he is required to make. In this case, the Mustang runner tried to slide around the tag and was tagged away from third, at least a foot from the base. The umpire, standing near the pitcher's mound, couldn't see all of that, but it was obvious to everybody in my section, just a few feet from third base and with an excellent angle on the play.
I suggested that in such cases, the umpire should be able to appeal to the fans, reasoning that if even the hometown fans disagreed with a call that favored the home team, then the call must have been wrong.
"It would be a good test of the crowd's honesty," I said.
Gary Amundson, sitting next to me, shook his head.
"He would be safe," he said.
The guy directly in front turned around and looked at me.
"There's honest, and there's stupid," he said.
The expression in his voice left no doubt in which category he thought my suggestion belonged.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
When I was a kid on a baseball team, I slid into second and was out, but the umpire called me safe. I got up and told him "Oh no - I was out."
I caught hell from the coach for being stupid.
Post a Comment