Quote:
Originally posted by Atl Blue
If Crawford had insisted he were right last night, the call would not have been changed, especially since he is the crew chief here. Do you think Charlie Reliford would have "overruled" Crawford if Crawford insisted he got it right and didn't need help? Not if he wanted to work in the MLB again.
In the words of this board, Crawford is a big dog, Reliford is a (relative) pissant. If Crawford said it was fair and Reliford said it wasn't, it was going to be called fair.
But thankfully, Crawford is a bigger man that heard the reactions and knew he might have missed it. So he got help. If Reliford "announced" it, OK, but it was Crawford that was convinced to change his call. And if he hadn't been convinced, it wasn't going to get changed.
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This misses the point, actually two points. Suppose that Reliford was the senior official and Crawford was the little dog. Would the call be changed even if Crawford was insisting that it was right? In the Jurassic age, no, today, probably yes. That is because calling officials are very receptive to change which leads to the next point.
The second point is what happens the next day in the press and with the supervisor of umpires. If they change the call, Crawford is off the hook, even if it turns out he was right. However, if he insists on staying with the call and it turns out he was wrong, his career is over.
In other words, if multiple umpires come to the calling official and insist that he got it wrong, the calling official will defer to them. His job is on the line if he does not defer to them. Their job may be on the line if they insisted and the cameras show them wrong. That is why a smart calling official will defer to other officials who insist that he is wrong. He has just been given a free pass.
In the Jurassic age, this scenerio would have never played out, in today's climate, it has become the norm. You can debate semantics on who changed the call all you want, but the bottom line is that Reliford changed the call. If he had kept his mouth shut, we had a home run. Reliford made the decision to open his mouth and initiate the change. In the old days, he would have kept silent even if he saw the miss.
Peter