Phillies at Nationals
 

Charlie Manuel was ejected by Rob Drake for arguing a check swing in the bottom of the first. Apparently Joe West fell ill right before the game. With runners at first and second there was a check swing and it was appealed to the third base umpire, Andy Fletcher who was on the first base side second base, although I think he should have been on the third base side of second base, for if there were a double steal he would have not a chance to run toward third to make a call. He ruled no swing, although it doesn't look good in an MLB game when you appeal to third and the third base umpire is practically next to the first base umpire.

You would think in an emergency instance like this, MLB would have former professional umpires who live near the area on standby instead of waiting for one of the AAA call-ups to fly in which takes several hours at least.

Have two or three former professional umpires who live near an MLB park on standby for a season, give them $2,000 a year just to be on standby, and if a AAA call-up doesn't have enough time to make it to the game, have them be one of the four umpires for that game (not behind the plate) and give them $2,000 for each game they work (usually one game as the AAA call up would make it there for the next game).

That all sounds great in theory, but you think there are 32 former MLB umpires that are physically capable, one per city that is available to work a game at the last minute?

Good luck with that policy. And would someone want to hang out with what they already make to hope and pray someone goes down just to work? And this is such a rare situation in the first place that I doubt this even would be worth it to have someone on constant hold.

Peace

They don't have to be former MLB umpires, former minor league umpires would suffice. If this were a pennant race game, it doesn't look good to appeal to the third base umpire when he is next to the second baseman.

Still not practical. You want a guy that never got to the majors working those games as the standard?

Now they could add a couple of guys to each crew and rotate guys in and out regularly, but that is not going to happen either.

How many times does this situation even happen? Not very often if hardly ever, so there would be no need to do such a thing. Baseball is not that hard where guys cannot adjust for one game in 3 Person in an emergency.

Peace

Absent ump impacts game?
 

Talk about adding 15 field supervisors (working for ESPN), expanding the field coverage from the ESPN tv booth, and allowing more rules for using instant replay from the ESPN tv booth.

One baseball guy, working in an ESPN tv booth, with the power to allow the call to stand or to overrule the call in judgement cases where overturning the ruling on the field does not destroy the integrity of the game.

This message is not an endorsement from ESPN. ;)


All Top Plays | PHI@WSH: Absent umpire at third base impacts game - Video | MLB.com: Multimedia

"Andy Fletcher who was on the first base side second base, although I think he should have been on the third base side of second base, for if there were a double steal he would have not a chance to run toward third to make a call."

He was there with R1 only. Did he stay there with R1, R2? Deep B is now being favored with R1.

Why would anyone who either retired from the game or wasn't good enough to be in it be a standby major league umpire? What a huge waste of money to have thirty people on standby for something that happens maybe once a year.

This is not a problem that needs to be solved.

All they would have to do in order to pay for it is to call them the "Green Energy Standby Umpires." they could get a few hundred million from Washington.

That's awesome! Very funny stuff.

Did MLB expand to 32 while I wasn't looking? :)

(PS - it would only take 25 - Balt/Wash; NY/NY; LA/Ana; ChC/ChW; SF/Oak, but other than that I completely agree in principle - would rather go with 3 than have someone no longer active out there.)