What calls can you pass on?

[Tim C]

Tony:

Being a veteran official in basketball and baseball at very high levels my opinion is: "I am not sure the two sports are comparable."

Where basketball has a clear acceptance of advantage/diadvantage I am not sure baseball follows those lines.

While my strike zone maybe the shape of an egg rather than a true rectangle isn't really stepping off a very high curb.

I mean we let base coaches stray from their assigned coaches boxes but I never need to worry about "how much contact is OK in the post."

We can discuss balks to death on these sites. I follow the Cece Carlucci philosophy that I only call balks that every one sees. Does that mean I would not have called the famous IBB balk of the other night, who knows? -- If I was there, working under Dave Yeast and he had told me to get serious and call balks I would HOPE I would have had the stones to call that specific balk.

Contrary to Matt's post above I don't think baseball players, coaches and fans know rules any less than any other sport. I don't think baseball rules are any more complicated and difficult than any other sport. Therefore I don't think it is my job to call something strange . . . it is my job to know when one of those obscure rules are broken and how to manage that issue.

Your question really is not new . . . it is simply another way of asking are the "letter of the rule" guys correct or are the "common sense and fair play" correct.

Baseball is not like basketball . . . and obviously those that post on the internet define that difference quite well.