Educate the public

[PeteBooth]

We all know the various myths that exist in baseball. IMO, the reason they exist is because coaches / players and fans are not as educated compared to our counterparts in the NFL and NBA.

In PRO Football and in Basketball, the referee explains to everyone what the call is and the number of the player who committed the foul.

If something strange does happen, the officials meet as a unit, and eventually the refree will explain the call. Not true in baseball, especially on those wierd type plays.

In baseball, more often than I think we want, we are left with announcers to explain the call or interpret a rule and we all know what that means and had many a thread on this subject.

I would like to see baseball officials start explaining their calls. IMO, this would serve the following purposes.

1. An umpire Him/her self would become more educated as well because they now have to explain the call so it behooves one to study the rule book and ask questions.

2. Some of the various myths would start to go away

3. The game would have more connsistency to it.

I am not talking about routine type plays, ie; batter is out by mile. Let's take a common myth The hands are part of the bat

In order to rid this myth the umpire should give more of an explanation other than award B1 first base. Whenever a batter gets hit in the hands The call would go something like this.

TIME! batter was hit in the hands and is awarded first base.
Coach: "Blue the hands are part of the bat"
Blue: "hands are part of the body not the bat"

After a while, this myth would go away, because when we explain the rule to 2 coaches, eventually word gets around.

I know the games last on average over 3 hours, but explaining certain rules would make the game better and educate the public.

The other alternative which I doubt the networks would go for is to have an ex umpire (ala Steve Palermo) in the booth to explain the rules.

Too many times, we (the public) are left pondering as to what is happening out there and what the rule is. Also, as the rules are explained and people start finding out that (as J/R indicates) there are some 75-100 discrepancies in the book already, then some action might take place like rewrite them so that they can be understood.

If our fellow officials in football and basketball can explain the call to the public why can't the men / women in blue do the same?

Pete Booth