WSH - CWS Estabrook reversed...
 

Baseball Video Highlights & Clips | WSH@CWS: Bixler scores go-ahead run on error - Video | MLB.com: Multimedia

Nelson at home, Estabrook at first.

Warning: ignore the announcers...

Why need a warning? Does anyone here EVER pay attention to the announcers?:D

The question is: how do you suspend an interim manager? Sure looks like he made contact with the 1B umpire...

Manager did say in the post game he made contact with the brim on the hat with his hand. Also said he was wrong to do it and didn't mean to.

A bench coach who got a little excited at his one night with the cards...

Imo
 

Tough one to re4verse, unless the HP umpire had a better look than we did on video. Reality is someone is going to go on that play, offensive mgr if not reversed, and defensive manager when it was reversed.

I have a hard time reversing that call in reality. Make you call and stick with it. But that's not MLB in 2011.

I'm just curious as to why the 1B umpire was so way out of position on this play. I watched the game on the Comcast late night replay and when this play occurred, I was surprised to see U1 so out of position on this, which is why he couldn't and didn't see the tag/no tag properly.

How was he out of position?

Haven't you seen the play? When F3 came off the bag and had to reach back to make a swipe tag, Estabrook should have gone toward the line to view the tag attempt straight on (this is akin to a plate umpire being along the 3rd base line extended on a similar tag attempt situation). There is NO way an umpire standing where he was standing is going to be able to see a swipe tag like the one in this play.

No U1 should have went right where he did.. and if you look he did go toward the line, you have to get your self a angle on these plays.. Estabrook did a good job of adjusting to the play.

Hardly. He was in poor positioning and didn't see the play at all (he was waaayyyy angled out from the play), which is why he ruled it a tag for an out.

The lengths at which people on this forum go to defend guys who err never ceases to amaze me. :rolleyes:

Are differences of opinion not allowed?

Perhaps then we should all just wait for you to post the Gospel and simply post +1

Now THERE'S an idea! :D

I have seen so many umpires moving to an angle significantly less than 90° that I'm thinking there must be a new mechanic coming up from PBUC. They move way off the line toward 2B and look back at F3 and the base.

All that really matters in the end is that the White Sox lost. Beautiful.

Bite me. Sounds like a disgruntled Flubs fan.

One of the umpires in our association is current assigned to the minor leagues. I've got a message into him to see what PBUC's recommended mechanic on this is since you brought it up.

Cool. I'll be glad to know -- as I say, I see this all the time now.

PBUC says "shoot for 90 degrees, but if you go a little further, its better than not going far enough".

Naturally, everybody goes a little further and wider.

90 degrees on a swipe tag? That's insane, just insane. Never mind that it makes it virtually impossible to SEE the tag.

90 degrees is where you start. You can adjust from there with a step or two depending on where the throw is.

A step or two is one thing--that's understandable. However, Estabrook was more than a "step or two."

You lock in once you read true throw. Estabrook correctly did not read true throw and immediately began adjusting towards the line. It was textbook.

I was more curious to see if anyone had opinions on the reversal and the aftermath. At the college level, you probably get away with this reversal and its seen as "getting together and getting the call right". At the professional level, you only get one shot at it. Completely different expectations.

Well, I can tell you that at the MLB level, the emphasis the last couple of years has also been "getting the call right." The PU in the game in question was one of my classmates at umpire school and has spoken at my association's banquet in the past. I was almost tempted to call Jeff and ask him about this philosophy and if it was the reason why things transpired the way they did. However, I decided not to bring it up.

BTW, as far as Estabrook adjusting toward the line, he didn't do much adjusting, which was his problem. Had he been able to get to the line, I think he would have seen things as Jeff did.

Rule #1 in umpiring: There are no perfect angles/positions to make calls.

Rule #2 in umpiring: Soemone will always think you should have been positioned somewhere else to make the call.

99% of the time, calls at first can be made from where he is positioned. A decade ago there was an MLB movement to take calls at first from just a step or two inside the line. They found that they were missing more calls and have adjusted accordingly. Evolutionary mechanics on display.

Personally, I thought the adjustment was a bit late. But I can empathize -- I've been there, too.

I don't think there's any way the PU has a good enough view to overturn this or even initiate the conversation. But I didn't have his exact view, so this is just an opinion from seeing the replays and knowing how these plays go down and look from each position.

I've never moved away from 90 degrees. It's always been good enough for Jim Evans and his school and I'm most interested in seeing the foot and adjusting for the bad throw and tag. I don't always adjust quickly enough, but I do most of the time.

It is difficult to adjust that quickly, especially when we're supposed to be stationary when making the final call. If we're still adjusting, odds are we're still moving, which is not beneficial.

All of the above, and the fact that we occasionally get a late read on bad throws out of complacency, as the expected good or decent throw is what usually occurs, and we anticipate it. That momentary hesitation can mean just getting a step and a lean/look at the swipe tag.

He Emailed me to explain that PBUC teaches to get a 90-degree angle to the throw and adjust accordingly, which was the way I was taught at school, so it's nice to see things haven't changed in that regard. For swipe tags, one is taught to line up in a straight line with the fielder, runner, and tag in order to best view the tag attempt.

There is a new mechanic with regard to three and four man crews...at least some PBUC evaluators are preaching to go one step further than where you would stop and be at a 90-degree angle. I literally stayed up until 2 a.m. debating it with two PBUC evaluators this past off-season. (My wife was horrified when she saw what we were doing to our living room.) The red book is being re-written, too. Don't know when it will be out, and I don't know if they will change the 90-degree mechanic in that book (for two-man crews).

It seems to me that they are moving in the wrong direction ...

Law, did they share with you why they felt it was a better look?

My MiLB colleague further Emailed me today, saying:

It's because you get a view of the open side of the mitt and can take a more big picture approach to the play, which is something they are advocating on all force plays (not just at first). Take big picture.

Some of what you post is slightly different from what I hear from AA an AAA MiLB umpires. Part of this can be explained by the practice in which different PBUC evaluators, from whom MiLB umpires get much of their guidance and changes, cover different leagues/levels.

What level is your colleague currently working?

Might also be a 2-man vs. 3-man difference.

Could be. I know I like going further than 90 degrees, but it really makes you need to be aware of bad throws, cause you have to adjust farther to get the tag attempt.

Ump25 is correct in everything he says based on my source. I can't speak to the AAA umps because they do what the MLB evaluators tell them, but as far as the AA umpires are concerned, they are being told by their evaluators to go a step further off the line (which would actually be a less than 90-degree angle on a throw from third or shortstop). In fact, they revised the three-man mechanics already in MiLB and I know for a fact that the PBUC evaluators who evaluate the AA guys are preaching the advantages of taking a step beyond where one would stop for the 90-degree angle.

It's amazing how the rage for years was 2SF (perhaps not at the professional level) and here's the pros saying that this adjustment is wrong (in the wrong direction).

Hmmm,
 

Rich, I think that we will always see Professional Mechanics changing.

He11, they can't even decide who should take the second call in the infield when the ball never leaves the infield. They change that mechanic every few years.

What we see is as players get not only bigger but faster that different ideas are formulated of what constitutes giving any one umpire the "best" view.

At least mechanic changes appear to be to help define a "better umpire environment" where as the constant changes in uniform appears to be just either vanity or a predescribed plan to get all the "wanna be" umpires to change uniforms every-other-year.

We can now easily see that MLB umpiring is far inferior to umpiring prior to 1999.

T

This is what I've been told as well.

I have known about the open glove advantage for a few years, but I was curious as to any other advantages that some might feel it has. I understand both camps and I am of the mind that allows me to take 98% of my plays from about two steps off the line. Both ways work as long as you know what your giving up and have excellent timing.

"A" ball if my memory serves me correctly.

No, that's Dick Honig trying to find new ways to make money. Just convince MLB to change uniforms to something that he alone makes/carries.

He's already trying to monopolize football by talking state associations into mandating his pants -- he's kicking money back to the state associations for each pair sold and he's putting a required state logo on the pants that only he has access to.

Once this started to go down, I moved most of my business to other suppliers, especially Ump Attire.

He'll most likely get away with it, too. After all, if state associations require the use of such pants, and the only way to get them is from Honig's, what's a guy to do?

I'm sure. Fortunately my state hasn't gone down this path. Till it does, I'll buy from places that don't have these monopolistic deals. That said, I did need to buy some Honig's pants for a tournament I'm working in August.

So, in the end, it looks like Estabrook was doing exactly what he should. It wasn't a bad angle, considering that no position will be perfect and this allows for a few potential plays at first. Evolution in mechanics on display.

I wouldn't call that evolution; I'd call that having a poor angle to see the swipe tag.

Right...you can either be in a terrific position to see a swipe tag but miss a pulled foot or dropped ball or...just accept that the best umpires in the world are doing something that gives them more advantages than not. You don't have to call it evolution, even though it is a change for the better at such a competitive level.

My take on this (and on the "who has the second play in the infield?" issue) is that no position is perfect; whoever in "in charge" gets burned by a particular play and thinks "if only I was in this other position, I could have got that call right" so changes the mechanic and that's the way it stands until the next guy gets burned by the opposite play.

+1.