[DownTownTonyBrown]

Both sides of this argument have been made to the extreme on their respective, opposite sides.

This scenario is of four minor errors added together that make a tremendous difference in outcome.

Who's to say they were errors? Why is your judgement better than anyone else's? All of the officials' "errors" were made in favor of one team. I think that by itself is highly improbable.

Inches foul? How do you know? Safe? How do you know? Cock ball? Never heard of the term and personally would never use it. Sounds like a strike but how do you know?

There is one way that fans, players, and coaches know. The way they know is because that is what the umpire says.

Fans don't get to make the calls. Neither do players or coaches, or laser beams, or touch sensitive gloves or bases, or TV replays, or QuesTek. Umpires make the calls and whatever they call, that is the result. Determine games? Hopefully never.

Umpires try to see that both teams play within the same lattitude of the rules. Umpires are a necessary part of the game. Fans are not, coaches are not, any particular player is not. But an umpire is there for the entire duration of the game and hopefully makes equal decisions for both teams throughout the duration. The umpire that can make all uncontested calls is either very lucky (no close plays) or has great game management and consistency skills. The latter is what we all strive for because the game without close plays hasn't happened yet.

For an umpire every call is a decision and every call helps determine the game.

The umpire is a necessary part of our sporting contests. Hopefully the players can count on the umpire's part as being equal for both teams. Intentional bias is obviously not equal. But that is such an extreme rarity, why argue about it?

I'm starting to ramble...

Conclusion. From my perspective, to accuse an umpire of DETERMINING a game is ludicrous. I've not seen anyone yet that made such an accusation and was not somehow biased.