Quote:
Originally posted by Bfair
Who knows, at the protest committee they may have said Cooney acted within the intent of the General Instructions to Umpires which state it is more important to get the call right. Look in the book, the General Instructions are still there. If you have lost your rulebook, you might buy a new one---the General Instructions should still be there (at least the last time I looked). I consider that to be at least "authoritative opinion".
Don't forget, the protest in the Pine Tar incident went way of "intent" of rule vs. the actual verbatim wording and black & white print. I guess the commissioner's office must have seen some fine print between the lines that others couldn't see. It seems some may not have lost sight of the actual purpose of an umpire.......to be an impartial judge for fairness and balance......
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I don't normally respond to Mr Freix's posts if I can avoid it, because IMO he has so far shown no real inclination toward accepting
any of the genuinely good advice offered him in the past if it at all conflicts with his own preconceived notions. But on this occasion he has put forward a proposition so beguilingly false that it simply cannot be left unanswered, in case some new or relatively inexperienced official is seduced by it's deceptive simplicity. It is the second of three (3) falsehoods addressed here.
1. A Protest Committee can NEVER legitimately decide that an umpire "
acted within the intent of the General Instructions to Umpires", as claimed by Mr Freix. Why? Because they derive their charter from OBR 4.19 which says, specifically, that they are only to decide "
that an umpire's decision is in violation of these rules." It has been pointed out continually to Mr Freix that, while the General Instructions to Umpires are physically part of the rule book and provide valuable guidelines for officials, they are neither a part of the rules themselves (which are clearly numbered using a decimal numbering system) nor of the incorporated casebook notes and comments. Further, it has also been pointed out that the General Instructions are considered outdated by the very professional umpires for whom they were originally written, and so have been reinterpreted in the light of contemporary professional umpire practice.
2. The "
actual purpose of an umpire", is NOT as Mr Freix claims "
..to be an impartial judge for fairness..." either! For a full explanation of the umpire's responsibilities one need look no further than OBR 9.01. The words FAIR and FAIRNESS do
not appear ANYWHERE in OBR 9.01. In fact
those words don't even appear in the General Instructions to Umpires, of which Mr Freix is evidently so fond. Umpires have many duties and responsibilities, but being the arbiter of "fairness" or "justice" is NOT among those duties and responsibilities. Mr Freix also used the word "balance" in connection with his version of the umpire's true purpose. In this one word he has offered the only small measure of truth in all that he has posted here. Where the umpire has no specific rule to enforce, and is required to make a choice between two or more possible outcomes, he should choose the outcome which best maintains the "balance" between offense and defense.
3. The Commissioner of Baseball was NOT usually a part of either league's Protest Committee, to the best of my knowledge, at the time of the pine tar incident. I suspect he became involved in the now infamous George Brett pine tar incident only because it was a case of a rule being found to be so obviously out of date, and the punishment for a breach being found to be so grossly inappropriate to the offense, that urgent and extraordinary attention was needed to correct the inequity in the system. I seriously doubt that the commissioner had ANY regard to the General Instructions to Umpires in making his decision in this matter.
Umpires are generally charged with:
- Conduct of the game (in accordance with the rules)
- Maintenance of discipline and order (on the playing field during the game)
- Representing the league
- Representing professional baseball (if applicable)
- Exercising authority over players, coaches, managers, club officers or employees and spectators or other persons on the playing field (whether authorized to be there or not)
- Making decisions on points not covered by the rules
There are some more specific responsibilities outlined in OBR 9.03, 9.04 and 9.05. The General Instructions to Umpires that are continually reprinted in the rule book have not been altered since 1955. The actual General Instructions themselves have been expanded and changed by NAPBL (see Section 7 - Instructions to Umpires) and MLB (Instructions not available except to MLB officials), each for their own particular purposes.
Without wishing to devalue the old General Instructions to Umpires, and their laudible ideals for approaching the task of officiating baseball, they are far too simplistic to be useful for mature officials. St Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians said,
"
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways." [13:11].
Steve, with all good intentions and in the positive spirit of this passage, I suggest to you that it is time to give up your "childish ways" and instead seek a more mature approach to officiating this great game of baseball.
Cheers,
[Edited by Warren Willson on Feb 27th, 2001 at 06:07 AM]