[Warren Willson]

Originally posted by Warren Willson
It is certainly NOT illegal for an umpire to change his mind on any judgement call.

I do need to make two things perfectly clear, as regards the changing of judgement calls:

1. There are certain times when the umpire must "change his mind" in order to correct an "obviously blown call". Here are just three salient examples:
   
   
   1. Changing a call of Fair to Foul - permitted because no game action can follow the call of Foul.

   2. Changing a call of Foul to Fair - permitted only providing the change is almost immediate, and not participant has reacted to the original call.

   3. Changing a call of Out to Safe - immediately after having noticed the ball on the ground following the Out call.
   
   There are at least five (5) such occasions when changing an obviously blown judgment call is traditionally mandated. None of those would normally be possible AFTER an illegal objection from a participant.

2. The fact that a judgement decision that is "final" may NOT be LEGALLY changed, according to OBR 9.02(a), does NOT prevent an umpire from changing that call anyway. It would be extremely unlikely that any protest argument would be entertained on that point. There are so many things that umpires do according to History and Tradition that are clearly ILLEGAL, by the literal wording of the rules, that I doubt any protest committee would want to open that particular can of worms.

All the same, just because a judgement call CAN be changed in certain circumstances does not mean that it SHOULD be changed. I have pointed out before that the umpire has TWO responsibilities under OBR 9.01(a)

1. Conduct of the game in accordance with the rules, and

2. The maintenance of discipline and order on the playing field.

Umpires who repeatedly change their judgement decisions will often find themselves embroilled in rampant ill-discipline and disorder on the playing field. Umpire dignity may not be the be-all and end-all where judgement decisions are concerned, but it is an essential element for effective game management. That is why umpires MUST be circumspect about changing their judgement decisions.

The case given earlier where respected NCAA umpire Jon Bible changed an obviously blown judgement call was an excellent example of the umpire choosing his game management role in preference to the sanctity of his judgement call BECAUSE ill-discipline and disorder were already in evidence. I'd be willing to bet there were many, MANY more occasions in his illustrious career where he has stuck with a marginally less obvious blown call for the sake of maintaining his authority on the diamond throughout the balance of the game.

Finally, before anyone naively recites the provisions of the General Instructions to Umpires that follow OBR 9.05(c) in the rule book, they should first read, mark and inwardly digest the entire contents of Section 7 of the NAPBL/PBUC Umpire Manual. That supercedes the copy of General Instructions in the rule book, just like any other interpretation, and it makes significant variances to the language of the rule book version.

Particular attention should be paid to NAPBL/PBUC 7.22(1) in regard to when and why an umpire should ask for help. Be especially careful to try and understand what it means for your "objective" to be "to have all decisions ultimately correct", as opposed to the rule book admonition that "the first requisite is to get decisions correctly". They are most certainly NOT one in the same thing. If anyone is interested I'd be happy to provide an example that proves the difference.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

[Edited by Warren Willson on Jul 12th, 2003 at 06:10 PM]