tie goes to the runner?

[Dave Hensley]

Originally posted by Warren Willson
They can never accept that the game is deliberately biased at times, usually to make it a more interesting contest. They are also committed to their belief that the umpire is really some kind of superhero on-field dispenser of Justice and Fairness, instead of simply being an impartial arbiter of what actually happened.

I don't know any umpires, in real life or on the Internet, who have a problem with the "biases" inherent in the rules. Each team gets the same number of turns on offense and defense. If the rules are "biased" towards the offense or defense, the fact that each team gets the same number of turns makes it "fair." Your Don Quixotes are made of straw.

Warren Willson
Maybe someone should write a book on what cues umpires may reasonably use when giving the "benefit of the doubt" on close plays. As I understand it "making the expected call", an acknowledged Childressian concept, is about calling pragmatically based on facts. It is not about romantically "rewarding" or "punishing" what either team "deserved" to have happen based on any perceived great or poor gameplay.

Well, I think you understand the Childressian concept somewhat incorrectly, as this passage from his article "TEACHING JUDGMENT: THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT" illustrates:

In my April, 1988, “Doing It” column for Referee magazine, I wrote about optional umpire signals. HereÂ’s one: The ball beats the runner to the base (the runner is going to be out), but the fielder is lazy and doesnÂ’t bend his back. The runner slides and the glove touches the
runner somewhere above the waist. I recommended that the umpire scream “Safe!” and then slap himself the tag was applied: “You will be forgiven [I wrote] if you exaggerate a little when you show where the tag was made.”

WeÂ’re looking to be consistent. WeÂ’re also looking to decide which team executes better on any given play. We all know that the better team gets the better calls, even though we may not admit that in public. A man I know in the Netherlands hates that idea. He claims itÂ’s an American
invention. Well, so is baseball.

(emphasis my own)

As I said previously, the Benefit of the Doubt principle I've described - which explicitly includes evaluating which sided "earned" the call by superior play - is a concept that is taught by "high-level" clinicians. It is a concept I personally have had good success with, and the feedback I get from the "real-world" umpires I have helped train is virtually 100% positive.

I just checked the free Childress library at eumpire.com to see if the article I referenced is posted there. It's not, which is a shame, because it is, in my opinion, one of his best.