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Thanks for your candor, Carl. No, I'm not offended at all.
I will say this though, has it not been driven into us as umpires time and time again to think strikes and outs?
I've always been one to believe in Jim Porters idea of "The Strike Zone of Least Resistance."
Using his philosophy of finding different indicators to help call those borderline pitches strikes has always been helpful to me. I'm not talking about pitches that are obviously out of the zone. I'm talking about borderline pitches only. I look to call borderline pitches strikes whenever possible.
Then again I also believe in using the concept of an oval strike zone so as not to call a pitch that's marginal in two dimensions a strike. In other words if a pitch is borderline on the outside corner at the mid-thigh to the waist, I call the strike. However if the pitch is borderline on the outside corner below or above that I'm going to call it a ball.
I know other umpires that think the idea of using an oval is absurd. To each his own I suppose.
Tim.
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