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Shmuelg]No, this has nothing to do with the famous ficitional British wizard, but everything to do with umpiring.
We are taught that a good blue is an invisible blue.
How far do you go to do that? I'm curious.
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That might have been an old saying because I too have heard the same thing, however, in today's baseball climate it is virtually impossible if you are doing your job.
The rules for the amateur game have made it "tougher" to be invisible. We have the FPSR, No malicious Contact rule OBS rule.
When I played we simply went by what the BIG BOYS did and it was accepted. The umpires didn't have to worry about all these safety violations. Also, the game policed itself back then. No riots etc. That's probably when the "invisible" saying came about because back then an Umpire could be "invisible". Today is very different.
Ever end a game on a FPSR violation?
If you have then you probably heard the following as well:
"that's the worst call I ever saw"
The runner has a right to break up a DP etc etc
That isn't baseball etc. etc.
In other words all of these safety type rules that have been derived to keep insurance costs down have also effected the game to the point that we couldn't be invisible if we wanted to.
Pete Booth