They are a vain attempt to make Bud Selig look competent. Unless one of the extras is Bob Davidson, in which case he's there to detect balks.

Please explain. I fail to see the correlation with Selig and umpires 5 & 6. They were using six before Bud. Weren't they?

I think RB's comment was a vain attempt at humor. Yes, six-man crews in post-season play were being used for quite a while.

I don't know the accuracy of this, but I found this tidbit of history on the web:

"Did you know that prior to 1947, a 4-man (or less in the early days) crew was used for the World Series? In 1947, MLB went to a 6-man crew. However, from 1947-1963, the two outfield umpires stayed in their position for the entire series and did not rotate. Only the four infield umpires rotated for the series. In 1964, MLB went to the current system of rotating all six umpires."

Not surprisingly, in 1947 they wanted to pay those outfield umps LESS that the other guys! Jocko Conlin says they almost walked out over that. Also, they tended to use that to 'break in' relatively less experienced umps into the Series atmosphere.

I see nothing wrong with that. They had used 4 umpires but were experimenting expanding to 6. If I was the 5th or 6th umpire and had to choose between working a World Series or not working the World Series, I don't think a lighter check would factor it. It also would give me the experience of working the series and make it more likely that I would work more in the future.

The point Conlin was making in his book was that they were all doing the same job, and that they had to possibly travel the same distances, and that the only reason the two 'extra' umpires were working just the foul lines was the decision of Baseball, NOT the umpires. They fought them for YEARS trying to get the full rotation of the umpires assigned.