"Benefit of the Doubt"--when is it applicable?

[Patrick Szalapski]

Garth: Me? I gotta "see" a fair ball.
P-Sz: I've always had the opposite attitude
CC: ...if you don't SEE the ball fair, it is [foul].
Mick: [Your thought] sounds right, P-Sz.
Bfair: For me, when close to the line it is foul until proven to me to be fair.

Anyone else? I'm curious to know how others call it. How do they teach it in the pro schools?

Could it be that there's no "It's (fair/foul) until I see it otherwise" on this one? Perhaps we should just weigh it on the preponderance of the evidence either way, and forget about trying to assign benefit of doubt?

Carl's two examples are good, but can we really apply them to the foul ball?

PLAY: Pitch coming in, well out of the strike zone. The umpire must affirmatively see the batter swing to call it a strike. The umpire who blinks his eyes/is blocked by the catcher and misses a half-swing may "feel" that the batter swung, though the does not have reasonable evidence that it is so. Therefore, he calls "ball". When it is significantly uncertain whether the batter swung, the call must be left unchanged by the swing, giving the batter the benefit of the doubt.

PLAY: R2, grounder to short. F6 goes for the tag on R2, swiping and coming very close. It appeared that R2 SHOULD have made the play, but the umpire sees no glove deflection, sees no shirt movement, hears no impact. In reality, the glove may have just nicked him, or it may have just missed. The umpire doesn't know; the runner doesn't know; perhaps the fielder doesn't even know. There is no evidence available to the umpire that a tag occurred, only that it "maybe occurred". Therefore, the call is "safe".

Why do we do this? Shouldn't we make all calls match, in our judgment, what most likely occurred? If it is most likely that the tag touched him, by gum, he's out. After all, that's more likely to be the correct call.

Not quite. The reason we have these guidelines is to trade the gross miss (An out call on a tag we thought happened, but was clearly missed when viewed from a different angle) for a few close misses (Safe calls on a tag that barely nicked the runner).

Imagine one gross miss: Two strikes, Smitty blinks his eyes and misses an attempt at a check swing. Did he go? Everything in Smitty's gut and brain says he did, though he didn't ever see the bat out over the plate or past it. He calls "He went--Strike!", and everyone looks at him funny. Whoops. If he's lucky, the batter steps out and hacks at the air a few times. If he's unlucky, we've got an ejection.

Now, even ignoring the BU for a moment, imagine if the batter went, just like Smitty thought, but this time, he calls "Ball." No one will bat an eye, because it was a close call.

It is more important to get the call right in the first case than in the second. Yet the umpire has the same information in both cases.

Now, how does a clearly seen ball close to the foul line fit in to all that? I don't think it does. The umpire needs to make this call match, in his judgement, what most likely actually occurred.

Fill in the blank.s "The ball ain't ____ until I see it go ___ ."

The average umpire might put the same word in both blanks. Upon further consideration, I put "nothin'" in the first and "fair or foul" in the second.

P-Sz

[BJ Moose]

I haven't read Z's message, just the first part.. .but chance to echo some other comments about how dum that thread was.

Some persons actually allude that they would make a call based on what they could see with a MAGNIFYING glass on the slick astroturf, when every single OTHER person on the field and in the stands would SEE a ball "touching" (meaning over the vertical plane of) the line.

Unbelievable.

I bet they cover this in pro school like this.

What kind of nimrod would ask a stupid question like that.. next question.

Also, F/F benefit of doubt goes to BATTER, as detailed in my new book. "Mechanics for the 19th Century".

[Patrick Szalapski]

Originally posted by BJ Moose
I haven't read Z's message, just the first part.. .but chance to echo some other comments about how dum that thread was.

Yeah, I agree. I'm mostly concerned with bounding balls near the bases with this thread. The balls that stop short of the base or bounce first past it are the easy ones.

P-Sz

[Blaine Gallant]

Also, F/F benefit of doubt goes to BATTER, as detailed in my new book. "Mechanics for the 19th Century". [/B][/QUOTE]

*************

Hey Moose. When are my royalties coming in for the name of the book? If fully expect 20%, which should net me at least $2.95US, which of course is at least $1000 Canadian!

Nanook

[Bfair]

Originally posted by BJ Moose

Also, F/F benefit of doubt goes to BATTER, as detailed in my new book. "Mechanics for the 19th Century".

Any chance on getting an "autographed" copy of the book, Moose? Where are these now available? Are we allowed to change calls if we ask our partners?

Rocky

[Bfair]

Patrick, I think you have a very legitimate topic here. Not all decisions we make are without doubt.

I have certain philosophies regarding the doubt factor and have stated them in various threads. Some may agree while others disagree. Some may have already established their own basis for handling doubt factors.

I think what's most important is to realize these calls will have to be made when, at times, you are not sure of your call. Having YOUR OWN philosophy, whether it's one you heard and agreed with or one you devised for youself, will aid you in making timely decisions in a consistent manner. Hopefully you can logically justify your philosophies.

If you have never thought about it or established a basis on how to handle such decisions, now's the time to do it.

Just my opinion,

Freix

[David B]

I think we have to be careful in regards to "making a philosophy" on how to make these types of calls.

I know when I'm working with any umpire with under 5 years experience that I expect them to go by the philosophies that I have developed based on the rules and tradition of the game.

After they have called 5 or more years, then they might be able to develop their "own" philosophies, but

there are many umpires that I have seen that have many years of experience who still don't know how to make the right calls in a tough situation.

Many times an umpire is just too "black and white" and does not realize that there are many many rules and situations in baseball that are not specifically covered in the rules. I would hope that they would make the calls correctly based on the things they have learned from training and from umpiring.

I know that I am still developing some of the ways that I look at umpiring and this is my 23rd year to call.

One of the good things about reading what internet umpires write is that we are able to analyze for ourselves and take what we think would improve our umpiring and go with it.

The problem is too many umpires don't work at being a better umpire, and therefore are forced to make important decisions in a game that they have never thought about before. Very dangerous, but we have to deal with it week after week etc.,

Thanks
David

Originally posted by Bfair
Patrick, I think you have a very legitimate topic here. Not all decisions we make are without doubt.

I have certain philosophies regarding the doubt factor and have stated them in various threads. Some may agree while others disagree. Some may have already established their own basis for handling doubt factors.

I think what's most important is to realize these calls will have to be made when, at times, you are not sure of your call. Having YOUR OWN philosophy, whether it's one you heard and agreed with or one you devised for youself, will aid you in making timely decisions in a consistent manner. Hopefully you can logically justify your philosophies.

If you have never thought about it or established a basis on how to handle such decisions, now's the time to do it.

Just my opinion,

Freix

[senior]

We just finished Districts, and the great learning opportunities that were presented were taken advantage of by this old duffer.
I got a chance to work with older umpires, (at 66, this doesn't happen very often), and younger ones, (gung ho and very dedicated), and wouldn't pass up the chance to do this
again, at any time.
Some were "benefit of the doubt" types, some were the "I gotta see it" types, some were the "by the book" types. One particular trait was evident in all of them, and that was the fact that they were doing their best.
I don't know if I could catagorize myself in any fashion, except to say that I am a better umpire for having worked with them, and perhaps will fashion my future games with the thought of incorporating different tangibles into my game regimen. I am pleased to have had the chance to observe and work with so many really good umpires.

[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by Patrick Szalapski


P-Sz: I've always had the opposite attitude
CC: ...if you don't SEE the ball fair, it is [foul].
Mick: [Your thought] sounds right, P-Sz.
Bfair: For me, when close to the line it is foul until proven to me to be fair.

Patrick, when I'm not sure, here's what I do.

1. See if my partner can give me any help at all. I realize that in certain situations my partner can't help me, but if he can I look at him first. If I'm working with a familar partner hand signals come in very handy.

2. See if the reaction of the player gives it away. You see this more in youth levels. For kids that shave, they are taught not to give anything away although sometimes they do.

On the check swing, (assuming my partner can't help me), I quickly look at the players expression and if his expression reads something like "why in the heck did I go after that" we got a strike. If there's no evidence of this and my partner can't help me then the batter gets the benefit of the doubt.

I believe someone can't remember who mentioned that baseball "all in all" favors offense. If that is the case, then the benefit of doubt should lie with the offense and therefore, rule accordingly.

Hey it's like flipping a coin, we have a 50% chance of getting it right. Also, if we are not sure we have to sell it

I think the important issue is working on mechancis so that we do not get ourselves into the inevitable position of having to guess. It does happen, but if we work hard at our craft, this should be at a minimum.

Pete Booth