News: Major League umps to eject more, do homework

[Patrick Szalapski]

This from AP. P-Sz
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NEW YORK – "Yer outta here!" could be heard a lot more often at the ballpark this year.

Baseball officials are telling umpires to eject pitchers who throw deliberately at hitters' heads, not to give them a warning first.

"They've always had that authority," Frank Robinson, baseball's vice president in charge of discipline, said Wednesday. "We just wanted to reinforce it and make it clear they would have our backing if they took that action."

If a pitcher throws at any part of a batter's body other than the head, the umpire can either eject the pitcher or warn both teams that the next pitch thrown at a hitter's body will result in an ejection.

The planned crackdown was first reported Wednesday by the Detroit Free Press. It means pitches like the one Roger Clemens beaned Mike Piazza with last July will result in ejections. Clemens was not tossed in that game.

"It's reinforcement of the current rule and clarification," said Ralph Nelson, the baseball vice president in charge of umpires. "The rule has always given the umpire, once he determines intent, the ability to either warn or eject.

"What we're basically saying is that if it's up around the head, you can pretty much determine that's intent, and that in so doing, as the rule book spells out, you can bypass the warning. What we've trying to do is make enforcement more consistent with the rule book than in the past."

Commissioner Bud Selig put his staff in charge of umpires last year after owners abolished the league offices and league presidents. One of management's goals was to gain more control over umpires and have fewer brawls.

"I think players understood what was going on on the field, and I think things got better as the season went on," said Robinson, who handed out lengthier suspensions than the league presidents did. "We're trying now to stay on top of things, just like the book strike zone."

Baseball has told umpires to call the strike zone as it's defined in the rule book, which says a strike is any pitch over the plate from the top of the knees to the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of uniform pants.

To aid umpires, baseball agreed to a five-year contract with Questec Inc., which will provide five devices that can track balls and strikes to within two-fifths of an inch.

Questec already has developed technology for Fox's baseball telecasts that can track pitches within two inches.

"It will determine at the end of the day how many pitches umpires were correct and incorrect on," Nelson said. "It's an effort to develop consistency in the strike zone among umpires. We're not trying to replace umpires and we're not using this to evaluate umpires. We're using this to train."

When the system is in place, Nelson said, an umpire would receive a disk after a game that will allow him to review pitch calls. A similar system was used after last season in the Arizona Fall League.

"He can work on areas of his game that need help and he can go over it with his supervisors," Nelson said. "The umpires were very involved with the development as we were rolling this thing out."