Quote:
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Originally Posted by Dave Reed
Don't believe it? Well, even for a fast runner, 40 milliseconds is more than a foot of travel. Watch enough television replays of close plays at first base, and you'll see that the professional guys call it correctly when there is well less than a foot difference.
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Its not that I don't believe it if the stadium were completely empty. I find it hard to believe when the stadium is completely full and the home crowd yells safe or out moments before the ball makes a sound in the mitt. I find it hard to believe, a MLB umpire will hear every catch in these realistic conditions.
An umpire has to rely on more than hearing, vision is a good indicator. One good eye can move or jump many times in .04 secs and provide more value than both ears combined. Sorry, but at my age, I can't hear ****, so you must speak loudly in a quiet room. Sorry, will you repeat that. I can't hear you. But I would never dare umpire if I knew I were blind as a bat. Eyesight allows you to see foot hit the bag. Then hearing confirms what you already knew.
Umpires are as bug-eyed as you can get. Whatever detail one eye can capture, two eyes focused on the same spot always improve the details of sight within our brain. Now imagine an umpire with an ability to focus or shift eyes, called rapid eye movement, independently of one focal point. The improvement in vision would not only be twice as significant, it would exponentially increase, by a power of two {no pun intended}. Known as stereoscopic vision, vision of simple 2-D image would maginify the 3-D aspects of depth necessary for our brain to accurately judge the time of touch and time of catch together.