The Devil's Advocate

[sunfudblu]

Hey Garth,

This was what I was hoping to get out of my original post....a discussion in the off-season (for most of us) about something I think is quite interesting to most of us and that is whether or not our calls (good or bad) cost teams games and hopefully to get different views on this topic. We're not here to make fun of people or their experiences but rather to learn from them.

[Jerry]

. . .we will simply have to disagree.

. . . the proposition that poor officiating never costs teams victories is ludicrous.

Jim,
What the heck have you been smoking or drinking? Two things . . . we don't "simply have to disagree." If you wish to believe that it's the officials that "win" or "lose" games . . . then you obviously don't grasp the concept of officiating; or the concept of good coaching either.

As in any profession . . . there will be those that are unscrupulous. That was hardly the premise of this discussion. (The Hawaii example is hardly representative!) An official at a sporting event is no different than a judge at a murder trial. Both need to make an impartial decision based on evidence and rules. How those rules and evidence are presented is at the crux of this discussion. How the official perceives any given play only affects that play . . . not what went on beforehand or what goes on afterwards. Both the prosecution (the home team) and the defense (the visitors) need to persuade the judge (the official) that their perception of a ruling (a call) is the "truth". Not all judges are 100% correct in 100% of rulings . . . but they're elected or hired to fairly adjudicate based on their knowledge of the law and interpretations of case law and precedence. It's still up to the lawyers to prepare in advance and to present their case.


Jerry

[tornado]

To add to your analogy:

Thankfully umping/officiating is a bench trial because the jury of fans don't get their say. That really makes us Supreme Court Justices!

tornado

[sir_eldren]

heh heh heh!

I've always enjoyed this particular topic of conversation. I remember officiating the Division 2 championship game last Spring in ice hockey and having the losing team's goalie come up to me after the game and complain about the game being about the players, not the officials. Apparently I had cost them the game!

You see, I made the mistake of witnessing, on two instances, penalties being committed by the would-be losing team. So, as my job requires me to do, I put them in the penalty box. It was horrible: the opposing team scored on both power plays, giving them a 4 to 2 lead.

So after the game the goaltender is getting in my face about my penalty calls. I simply told him that I wouldn't have called anything if his team hadn't have done anything. He started following me to my locker room, so my partner cut him off. I heard him tell the guy that we didn't cause them to lose, his anability to stop the puck cost them the game. The goalie drooped his head and walked away.

A couple of weeks ago I had the great displeasure of officiating that team again. My partner and I called 3 penalties each during the game: all on that team. They lost by one goal. But the worst part was listening to all of their chirping. Not a thing has changed amongst them. LOL! But their goalie kept his mouth shut for once. ;o)

[greymule]

I sometimes get caught up in thinking about how much effect I had on the outcome of a game. Leadoff batter in the sixth takes a close 3-2 pitch that I call strike 3. But was it a little inside? Didn't I call that same pitch a ball on an 0-2 count in the first inning?

Then a single and a walk. Long fly, two out, both runners move up. Long fly, three outs. Well, had I called that 3-2 pitch ball 4, the offense would have scored 2 runs and had runners on 2B and 3B with 2 out. Then, when the leadoff batter in the seventh gets a hit, I wonder whether I cost that team 4 runs.

Of course, this kind of thinking assumes that the game would have proceeded exactly as it did. And you can go crazy looking at all the what-ifs.

I remember a college game in which we were down 1, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded. Ground ball deep in the hole to F6, throw to 2B is obviously too late, one run in, speedster from 2B steaming home. Then we realize the BU has called the runner out a 2B. Did he cost us the game? Apparently, but how about other plays—not so obvious—earlier in the game that could have changed the direction one way or the other?

[DownTownTonyBrown]

Both sides of this argument have been made to the extreme on their respective, opposite sides.

This scenario is of four minor errors added together that make a tremendous difference in outcome.

Who's to say they were errors? Why is your judgement better than anyone else's? All of the officials' "errors" were made in favor of one team. I think that by itself is highly improbable.

Inches foul? How do you know? Safe? How do you know? Cock ball? Never heard of the term and personally would never use it. Sounds like a strike but how do you know?

There is one way that fans, players, and coaches know. The way they know is because that is what the umpire says.

Fans don't get to make the calls. Neither do players or coaches, or laser beams, or touch sensitive gloves or bases, or TV replays, or QuesTek. Umpires make the calls and whatever they call, that is the result. Determine games? Hopefully never.

Umpires try to see that both teams play within the same lattitude of the rules. Umpires are a necessary part of the game. Fans are not, coaches are not, any particular player is not. But an umpire is there for the entire duration of the game and hopefully makes equal decisions for both teams throughout the duration. The umpire that can make all uncontested calls is either very lucky (no close plays) or has great game management and consistency skills. The latter is what we all strive for because the game without close plays hasn't happened yet.

For an umpire every call is a decision and every call helps determine the game.

The umpire is a necessary part of our sporting contests. Hopefully the players can count on the umpire's part as being equal for both teams. Intentional bias is obviously not equal. But that is such an extreme rarity, why argue about it?

I'm starting to ramble...

Conclusion. From my perspective, to accuse an umpire of DETERMINING a game is ludicrous. I've not seen anyone yet that made such an accusation and was not somehow biased.

[mcrowder]

Seems to me that, although we do make the occasional mistake, in almost every instance the official is in better position to make the call than fans, coaches, or players.

[Rich]

Conclusion. From my perspective, to accuse an umpire of DETERMINING a game is ludicrous. I've not seen anyone yet that made such an accusation and was not somehow biased. [/B]

Well, that's only because the only people that aren't biased at most games are the officials. Except some Hawaiians, apparently.

Jim Mills's example is a case where a team wouldn't have won had the incorrect calls not been made. In the scheme of things: So what? Until they remove the human element of officiating entirely, missed calls have to be played around by the teams on the field. Hopefully training and the process of selecting umpires will lessen the likelihood of missed calls, but it won't eliminate officials missing calls , since the best officials in the world occasionally miss some.

Of course, one could always argue that the missed calls in Jim's game wouldn't have mattered had the losing team put a few more runs on the board in earlier innings. But that's just as ludicrous as stringing three bad calls together to make some kind of point.