The Men in Blue

The Men in Blue

Two quick notes on home plate umpires—they’re easily duped and terribly confused.  Allow me to explain.

Thanks to gibbermetrics, the stolen base has been thrown into disrepute, leaving catchers the sole job of catching the ball, which has led to the nefarious art of framing.  He who takes a borderline pitch and sneaks it back into the strike zone, thus “framing” the pitch, for a strike call is anointed a good-to-great catcher.  Of course, if the umps were paying attention to all this subtle movement by catchers, they’d wise up to what was going on.

But for whatever reasons, they don’t.  Instead, umps constantly fall for the frame up, if you will.  It’s going to reach the point soon where catchers will get away with framing passed balls and wild pitches along with “ghost” pitches that pitchers pretend to throw, all motion no pitch but a strike call, nonetheless.  If I exaggerate, it’s not by much.

Then we have all those home plate umps who get confused while calling out a batter on strikes and think they should act like a Rockette or NFL kicker.  Guys, it’s baseball not a chorus line or a field-goal try from the thirty-yard line.  Call the batter out while not making a fool out of yourselves.  Please, for your own sakes as well as that of the national pastime.