A changed call at Texas

[Warren Willson]

Originally posted by Patrick Szalapski
Well, that all sounds great to me, Jim! The difference between us here is very little. I think the process of changing the call was a little on the shady side of the strict letter of the rules. You think the change was in full accordance with the rules. We both agree that the practical outcome was fair, just, and good. All is well in UmpireLand.

Patrick, I'm going to agree with Jim's analysis in all but one point. It was NOT the PU or U1 who first went to U2. It was the manager. He went to the umpire who made the call (no verbalised call) and asked him what he saw. When he said he saw the HBP is when they were joined by Ford and Bible. That is also the point at which we clearly had 2 different calls on the same play.

The manager was entitled to appeal to U2 under OBR 9.02(b) and the UIC (Ford) was entitled to pick the call that was most likely correct under OBR 9.04(c). There is NOTHING about this process that is at all "on the shady side of the strict letter of the rules." This was handled properly from start to finish, and the only errors were U2's failure to verbalise the HBP and possibly Ford allowing the manager to remain while the crew discussed the correct call.

Had this been a rule misapplication by Ford, then it would have been appropriate for him to seek U2's advice directly. This was clearly a case of 2 separate judgement decisions on the same play, and that could only have been determined after the manager first asked U2 "What did you see?" This was NOT strictly a case of Ford deciding to reverse his own call under 9.02(c), after consulting with U2. This was instead Ford, as UIC, deciding that U2's call was more likely to be correct under OBR 9.04(c).

I wouldn't have re-entered this discussion, as I had earlier intended, but Jim's honest error concerning the sequence of events needed to be corrected so you could be absolutely certain that there was definitely nothing "shady" going on here.

Cheers,

[Edited by Warren Willson on Feb 25th, 2001 at 05:34 PM]