All;
Ah, the fond memories of flame wars in the past. It was truly a joy to observe the s$$$house that I stirred up. I was laughing so hard, my office mates thought that I was reading internet porn.
For those that started reading the boards less than a year ago or so, these types of flame wars used to be an almost daily occurrance on eumpire. In the past, I was kicked off of eumpire on at least two occasions for starting stuff like this. I have also been kicked out of every listserve that I have belonged to for the same reason. In the past, I would label my attempts "as trying to start a s$$$house" which would infuriate the powers that be. This time, I just laid in the weeds and accomplished the same thing.
I need to make a few confessions. At the time that I wrote this, I was fairly sure that the MLB umpire was a relative no name. After I posted the piece, I emailed our resident expert on MLB umpires, Tim C, and asked him to confirm the MLB umpire's biography:
1. The MLB umpire has not umpired pro ball since the 1960s.
2. To say that he was a retired MLB umpire is misleading. He was terminated. His internet bio makes no mention of that however, and I felt uncomfortable posting it since I was not sure of his exact status. Thanks to Tim C, for his extensive memory regarding all MLB trivia.
3. There was malice of forethought in my post. I was fairly sure that some MLB groupies here at eumpire would jump on the bandwagon and support an MLB umpire, no matter what his qualifications. That would get the ball rolling as the purests among us would see the fallacy of the ancient MLB umpire. The fact that Jim Porter joined the groupie party was icing on the cake.
Garth was right to call Jim Porter on Jim's lack of scholarly argument in backing up the postion to call it a balk. I can't prove it, of course, but I would bet that Jim would have been on the other side of the argument had it not been an "MLB umpire" (ooooooh) saying it was a balk.
Several of you on the right side, got one thing wrong however. It is not the responsibility of the umpire to know where the ball is after it becomes dead. We have other things to do on a dead ball.
1. Drink water and towel off. Adjust our equipment as necessary.
2. Have "discussions" with the coaches.
3. Make lineup changes and other notes on our cards, such as record visits or courtesy runners in FED.
4. Rest.
5. If it's real hot, drink more water
6. Check out the scenery in the stands.
7. If there is a real hottie in the stands, stare at her some more.
8. Clean the plate.
As you can see, when all is said and done, the umpires have no reason to know where the ball is during a dead ball. They are not idiots for putting the ball in play if they have reason to believe that the pitcher has the ball.
That's why the rules help us establish where the ball is to be in order to bring it back in play. We are trusting that the players know this. It has to be in the possession of the pitcher and he must be on the rubber. This is for our protection as much as anything else.
Some of the MLB umpire groupies justified their position by saying that this illegal act must be punished. In MLB baseball, the apporpriate punishment might be ejection. At the level of ball that the rest of us do, we have another role. To a certain extent, we are educators. Gentle instruction on proper procedure is what's called for. Now if they try the same thing twice in one game, perhaps an ejection is called for.
Finally, I started this s$$$house for a reason. We must all be careful about the sources that we use to back up our positions. Don't use MLB as a guideline for situations that never occur or would not occur in MLB. You must consult people that do the type of baseball that you do and have real world experience in walking in your shoes. Several NCAA umpires that I know have a theory about MLB umpires. They would never get far in NCAA baseball. Their reputations would carry them, perhaps. But if Charlie Reliford went to NCAA D1 game and said his name was Charlie Jones, he would be scratched before he had completed 1 season. Likewise, NCAA umpires would probably not make it in MLB.
Both of us would have to change the way we did business in a hurry to survive on the other man's turf. Likewise, we need to be careful of where we get our advice. That was my goal in bringing all of this up. That and a whole lot of laughs.
Peter
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