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Sat Jul 20, 2002, 11:17am
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I'm sorry but I can no longer find the original thread for this subject.
Peter posted that during an intentional walk, a batter reached out and swung at an obviously unhittable ball, for the reason, he surmised, to make the pitcher throw more pitches and increase the possibility of a bad throw which would move a runner. Peter ignored the swing and wouldn't call a strike because there was no intent to hit the ball and because he believes in doing what they do in MLB and he's convinved they would do what he did. I wasn't sure. So I asked the MLB umpires what they would do. He's my question and their answer: > Question from Garth Benham : > > During an intentional walk, the batter swings and misses at a pitch that is high and outside and beyond his reach and obviously unhittable > A member of our group contends that the batter would do so only to make the pitcher throw extra pitches and it should be ignored and no strike called. > Other members believe that we cannot be mind readers and must call the strike. > What would a major league umpire do if this were to happen in the majors? > Hi Garth, A swing and a miss is a strike according to the rulebook. If it was felt that a rule was required for the intentions and play such as which you described, it would be in the book. However, it is not, so it is a strike by rule. Thanks for your question! World Umpires Association 
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 01:25am
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Garth, please tell me who is the World Umpires Association?
Who makes their rulings? What provides them authority to do so? Who do they make them for? Are they OI or AO? What weight do their rulings carry if in disagreement with JEA, J/R, PBUC, etc??? How about some details? Freix
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 01:47am
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Steve,
I believe they are the association of Major League Umpires. I have no idea who makes or writes their rulings or what authority they carry. I could ask if you'd like. Or you could, I suppose. I contacted them regarding a "practice" not a rule. I chose them because Peter's advice was to call the play as it would be called in the major leagues. I guessed that major league umpires would be the ones to contact for that purpose. If you choose to disregard their comments, that's okay with me. It's not heart surgery here. Nobody's going to die if we disagree. Besides, I'm not the one that said we should always call our games like the pros. Thanks for your questions. GB [Edited by GarthB on Jul 22nd, 2002 at 01:55 AM]
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 06:51am
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World Umpires Association
The WUA is a relatively new organization. It's actually the bargaining agent for the major league umpires. It is not an authoritative or interpretive organization or Major League Baseball however. That distinction belongs to the Professional Baseball Umpires Corporation (PBUC) formerly the NAPBL . . . National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues.
From Peter's original thread and discussion, it appears there may be some discrepancy in how both the NCAA and the PBUC would view the scenario . . . even among individual umpires. After some thought, I could live with Peter's "no strike" analysis, assuming there was no opportunity whatsoever that the batter could have hit the ball. (There are some "intentional" balls that could be hit; I don't think that was the gist of Peter's discussion.) Jerry
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 07:40am
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"From Peter's original thread and discussion, it appears there may be some discrepancy in how both the NCAA and the PBUC would view the scenario . . . even among individual umpires."
How can you make that statement? What ruling or interpretation in either PBUC or NCAA would even suggest a discrepancy. The Batter swung, STRIKE. The majority of us agree with the ruling that Garth just had clarified after Peter stated that he would "call the play as it would be called in the major leagues". Once again, we as officials have no right to judge the intent of the actions of a team or player to be right or wrong, if those actions are correct within the rules and guidelines established in any sport we officiate. If that was the case we could call a player out for not stealing when the should have. In Peter's case, he and he alone, decided that what the batter was doing did not fit his liking. He supported his action with the statement made above. Mr Garth, choose to go to the source and lo & behold, it did not support Peter's claim.
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 08:09am
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j:
I'm not arguing or disagreeing with you, my friend. I was alluding to Peter's much earlier thread and subsequent discussions wherein he had consulted with NCAA. Peter is also an NCAA umpire; so that's where I'm referring to the "discrepancy". My original replies to Peter also had me calling a "strike", but I can understand his reasoning for calling it a "ball". That's all. My last reply was more in the arena of describing the function of the World Umpires Association. While the WUA is the bargaining agent for the Major League (and Minor League) umpires, rulings regarding the game are reserved for Major League Baseball and it's PBUC arm. That group is made up of interpreters as well as players and umpires. Jerry
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 08:36am
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Refer to old post
j:
FYI. I found that old thread where we already put our two-cents' worth in. It's from June 21, entitled "And Another Weird One" from Peter as "His High Holiness". If you read through everything we wrote back then, you'll see that Peter has no support from any of us, but some of us can understand his rationale. Jerry
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 11:04am
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Quote:
What if their rulings disagree with JEA, J/R, or even PBUC? Which ruling should we consider more "authoritative", especially when we don't know WHO at WUA is presenting these rulings to us? The question is asked not for sake of argument, but for discussion.................. Where do YOU value the authoritativeness of their rulings when compared to those listed above? Freix
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 11:41am
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I just read this whole thread and saw a whole slew of misrepresentations of what I had written. I wrote several things but I never said "Call it like they do in the bigs" in that thread.
Here is what I actally wrote in the original thread: "If you don't see it in MLB, don't allow it in your games. I never saw a batter deliberately swing at air in MLB to forestall an intentional walk, so I won't allow it where I work. It's that simple." I am a proponent of calling a game the way that they call it in the bigs. I believe that (except in safety situations) calling it the way that people see the game on TV prevents all sorts of problems. I was trying to make the point in my quote above that you would never see this situation in MLB. Therefore there is no way that I can design a big league call for that situation. "Call it like they do in the bigs" does not apply here. But what I CAN DO is prevent it from ever happening again. If I had ruled a strike, some other joker whould have tried it again (like maybe on the next pitch). By calling "ball, no he didn't go", I prevented it from happening again (at least for anyone that knows me.) In other words, I have made my games resemble a big league game as opposed to some bush league cluster boink (to borrow a phrase from Moose) This is the same reason that I would not allow R1 to run out in right field in order to allow R3 to score. I won't allow it because I have never seen the play on TV. In that thread, writers expounded endlessly on the rules as to whether it was legal. I said "forget the rules" and then I expounded on ways to prevent it without getting the game protested. Finally, I totally discount Garth's response from the WUA. He has an unsigned ruling from someone working in public relations. They have no choice but to answer the way that they did especially given the way question was worded. My answer is too out of the box. The best baseball knowledge is gathered from top umpires one on one. Rarely will they go on record with something that is unusual. Certainly they would never go on record coming out of public relations except strict by the rules. In my original post, I was not totally clear as to the batter's actions. I later cleared it up and as I recall, it gave Garth pause as to how he would have handled the situation if he had to deal with it in a real game where the next pitch could be a beanball. To clarify: 3-0 on an intentional walk. The next pitch is 2 feet outside and high. The batter takes a full cut at air as if the ball was hip high, right down the middle. He did not reach out at the ball as is implied in Garth's question. My assignor approved of the call. His opinion is more important than the PR department of the WUA. He pays me, they don't. WUA members do not ever have to deal with this situation. Therefore, they can pontificate to the public in email all they want without having to worry about what would happen if they ever faced this. Peter
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 02:20pm
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I agree wholeheartedly, Peter, that many responses received from sources such as WUA, MLB.com, and perhaps even PBUC are answers that will be "politically correct" answers as per the written rules. They will not take into consideration the CSFP factor of applying that rule, although the MLB umpires usuarlly will.
Still, they remain our sources of at least learning what is intended by the rule for those areas of "unaddressed situations" that readily seem to be discovered. Just my opinion, Freix
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Mon Jul 22, 2002, 04:13pm
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Peter wrote:
"I am a proponent of calling a game the way that they call it in the bigs." So is the WUA, which is comprised of the umpires who work "the bigs." Their word on the issue: "strike". I don't believe I worded the issue in a biased way. I mentioned that the batter had no chance to hit the ball. If you'd like to ask the question in any other way, please feel free. I'm not getting heartburn over internet umpires disagreeing with major league umpires. It's small stuff. GB
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