Jul 07 2009
MLB Umps Have Lousy Monday
Calls by several MLB umpires need to be reviewed and action needs to be taken to prevent these kinds of calls from occurring again in any game. Their calls made a mockery of the rules of the game.
In the game between the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, Derek Jeter was thrown out at third trying to steal during the first inning. He clearly was safe. Jeter rarely argues, but got seriously involved in questioning the call. The third base coach was involved and Yanks manager Joe Girardi was thrown out of the game. The umpire, Marty Foster, said the throw beat Jeter to the bag. What a lousy excuse for a lousy call. After the game, Jeter said he was unaware of the rule change (that if the ball beats a runner to the bag and the tag is not made that the runner still is out).
Later in the game, second base umpire Wally Bell blew two obvious calls. Jeter threw to second for a force play. Robinson Cano made the catch with his foot on second base as the runner was sliding into the base. The runner’s front foot was about a foot from the bag, yet he was called safe. If this call was made correctly, Alex Rios would not have come up that inning and hit a three-run home run. Later in the game, an obvious neighborhood play occurred around second base. Bell called a Yank runner out even though the Toronto infielder could never have gotten to the bag.
Not to be outdone, the second base umpire (Adrian Johnson) during last night’s Detroit Tigers-Kansas City Royals game blew another obvious call. At a play at second, the infielder missed the tag and the runner over slid the base. The runner reached back and got his hand on the base and then the tag came very late. Yet, the runner was called out.
In all these plays, the umpires were not blocked out and were close to the respective bases. How could they miss such obvious non bang-bang calls? Were they out of position? What were they looking at?
On MLB Network last night, the crew on the air started discussing the call in the Tigers-Royals game. Barry Larkin said that during his playing career he once asked a senior umpire if their calls were ever reviewed by a governing board. He said that the umpire said that each crew critiques itself to help each umpire improve and that there is an oversight group that reviews all umpires on a regular basis.
Well, maybe this occurred when Larkin asked the questions, but something is lacking now. Increasingly, calls have been bad nothing is done. I don’t think umpires can be sent to the minors for seasoning as players are due to the collective bargaining agreement with the umpires union, but MLB and the umpiring group need to do something to improve the calls, the positioning and knowledge of the rules. Some bad umpires and bad calls are hurting the game.
