[bluehair]

In the business/technology world, you are bombarded with the pressure to always be making improvements. You tighten your specifications to makes a better product. Down the line others that use your improved product can create improvements in their product line. Living standards increase when you have the pressure of constant improvement.

I think that this is what is happening in sports officiating (as it should). If we allow sloppy rule adherence, that's what we'll get. But if we demand tight specification for baseball (players/coaches/umpires), we'll get an improved game. This improvement will trickle down all the way to youth baseball.

Will there be times when the specs are too tight for the situation, perhaps. Will there be times when the spec tightening gets put horrible in the lime-light...its going to happen. But put aside the way this one game ended, if the end result is that there are less bounce sets, then the game is improved for all.

We all have to decide if a no-call is appropriate for the level that we're in. Being over-officious at a lower level doesn't have the same game raising benefit that a televised NCAA game does. But even at the lower levels if we allow sloppy play, that's what we'll get until we again tighten the screw.