Quote:
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Originally Posted by LMan
"Strikes mean outs, outs mean games, games mean money."  |
No doubt I'm going to regret getting back into this thread. It began as an effort to show that the catcher can affect how pitches are called.
It's degenerated into chit-chat about umpires who want to call what "they" want rather than what is.
Dishonest: I go out looking for strikes.
Honest: I go out looking at pitches.
Dishonest: When in doubt, it's a strike.
Honest: If you don't see the pitch as a strike, it isn't.
The message quoted above, while cute and perhaps intended as nothing more than humor, represents a dishonest approach to umpiring.
Old Smitty: "Carl, I go out and in the first inning I call five or six borderline pitches strikes. Boy, they start swinging. My games are the shortest because I make them swing. Nobody walks but the mailman."
The batter has as much right to make a living as the pitcher. If you call questionable pitches strikes, you will force batters to swing at bad pitches.
Of course, that leads to outs!
Why is it we can't simply umpire?
Tee: Strikes & Outs: That represents my philosophy.
Carl: I've told Tee before that is a bad philosophy.
For those of you still learning, or willing to learn, listen, oh, my brothers: Don't report to the game with any agenda, with any expectations. Don't say: When it leaves the pitcher's hand it's a strike until proved otherwise.
When it leaves the pitcher's hand, it's nothing more than a pitch.
See the pitch, call the pitch.
Be as willing to walk three batters in a row as you are to strike out three in a row.
What the umpire thinks, how he views baseball, what he wants: None of that has any place in a game.