Clubhouse or Chapel

This article in Tuesday's NY Times goes into detail about how a former minor league umpire was put in uncomfortable conditions when, on Sunday's, his "office" would be turned into a chapel service.

“They preach to you,” Miller said in a telephone interview. “Some are more overbearing than others. At the end they ask if you have anything ‘you want me to pray for.’ The other guys would say ‘our families, safe travel.’ I’d say nothing. Then they would pray. It was very uncomfortable. They’d say Jesus this and Jesus that. At the end they’d say ‘in Jesus’ name.’ ”

Josh Miller, a Jewish man, says he didn't like the situation and that he felt like he was left with no other choice but to stay

“You don’t want to be rude to them because it might get back to somebody and it could affect your chances,” he said. Citing one umpire evaluator as an example, he added: “He’s a very religious guy, so I was really uncomfortable leaving. He’d ask, ‘Why are you leaving?’ I’d tell him I’m Jewish, and who knows what that would do. It was something I didn’t want to have to deal with.”

After reading this article I was kind of shocked that this was even the case. Let me first say that I am a Bible believing Christian. I do however, find this practice of trapping people in their office and preaching to them to be a little bit intimidating. I find that for Christians to be a good testimony, we need to be sharing the gospel by our actions - not just our words. For Mr. Miller to respond like this suggests that the chaplains were maybe sending him the wrong signals. In fact, he goes on to say

“Half the time they’d forget and pray in Jesus’ name and pray to Jesus,” he recalled. “One time this guy found out I was Jewish, and he started talking about nonbelievers and looking at me.”

It surprises me that they don't have a separate room setup where the umpires that do desire to be in the chapel can go. Or why not just let the umpires go into the players chapel - that might actually encourage less arguments during the game. I don't think it's fair - and if I were a Christian umpire and a man walked in to read from the Koran, or the book of Mormon, or any other book that I didn't agree with - I'd probably be a little unconfortable as well.

The organization who is responsible for the chapels is knows as baseballchapel.org. Their site is currently down for annual maintenance. I commend the baseball chapel for what they are doing, but I think they need to change their approach on how they share the Gospel during this upcoming season.

Tom Verducci's lucky day

Recently, Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci was granted permission by MLB to umpire one spring training baseball game for an opportunity to experience the pressure, the difficulty and the thanklessness of risking life, limb and public humiliation in front of thousands of people conditioned to dislike you.

Unlike his female counterpart that was mentioned below - it seemed like he had a little more excitment to deal with.

Some highlights:

He claims he missed a balk call from Curt Schilling, but it was no big deal because the whole crew missed it.

He got into a mild argument with Boston rightfielder J.D. Drew (who had no clue he was pleading his case to a sportswriter until Tom told him the next day). (The whole arguement is detailed in the article)

His #1 priority was to remember to get out of the way during infield pop flys so that Miguel Tejada (who would be looking up at the ball) would not plow into him.

Other than that - there wasn't much to get worked up about. He worked each base for 3 innings. His stint at third went by rather quickly because of good pitching by Schilling and O's pitcher Erik Bedard. There were no "did he go" moments with him at third which is always a tough call for an ump to make.

For the privilege of having to be perfect, umpires spend about 200 days a year on the road, hear the same lousy jokes in every ballpark about their eyesight or familial heritage, and routinely get second-guessed by critics watching repeated superslow, frame-by-frame replays in high definition from multiple camera angles. Yet major league umpiring jobs (of which there are 68) open up these days about as infrequently as those on the Supreme Court. What kind of person would love a job in which you get noticed only for your mistakes?

There is no doubt that umps are proud to be umps. But, part of the reason jobs do not frequently open is because it's their job, their career, as mentioned 200 days on the road a year. Just as a sports reporter thrives on the perfect story, or a writer thrives on a perfect story... these guys (and soon girls) thrive on making the right call. What must really get them going is to go back to view the replay and confirm that their split second, could go either way, judgement call was the right call... and fans and announcers actually agreed. Making the right call is what they live for - some of them take it a little more serious than others, take Tim Timmons take on umpiring for example:

"Umpiring is a gift," says ump Tim Timmons, 39, "like the hitter who has the skill to hit that 90-mph slider or the pitcher who can do things with a baseball no human being should be able to do. Those are real gifts, and so is umpiring. You can't teach instincts."

A gift? Like... from God? Although I don't agree with Tim's assessment that it is a gift - I do appreciate his pridefulness on being an umpire. I believe it takes practice, and with enough of it, anybody or their brother could be an umpire.

As for our buddy Tom, I'm actually glad he took the time, effort and practice it took to get this gig. It was pretty cool to read his take on the game from the umpires point of view. It's good for the sport to give the umpires a little publicity. They are frequently ridiculed and mocked by fans who have no clue about what goes on out there during the games. Will fans change? Highly unlikely! But we at least have a little glimpse of what it is like to be out there on the field, with all the pressure of making the right call. However, there is no doubt - we'll always be better than they are.

P.S. - I don't know about you, but I couldn't really tell the difference between Tom Verducci (who not surprisingly is the skinny one in the above picture) and Ria Cortesio.

Could Major League Baseball use a "Smart Ball"

In the wake of a non-call during a game last week, FIFA has begun discussing the possibility of using technology to help eliminate officiating blunders. One idea that struck me was the Smart Ball designed by Adidas. The idea behind this is simply suspending a chip in the middle of ball that sends a signal directly to the referee's watch less than a second after the ball crosses the goal line. That sounds like an excellent idea, but I can't imagine this would be used too often in soccer matches. 99 times out of 100, the ball goes to the back of the net, and it is an easy call for an official. However, this did get me thinking about sports back home here on American soil. As many problems that we have with umpires creating their own strike zone, and catchers fooling umpires with moving the glove, etc. Major League Baseball should look into designing there own version of the smart ball. There would be little computer devices hidden inside each baseball that would send a signal to the umpire if the ball crossed the plate. It would just beep, or buzz or something simple like that and then he'd know if it was a strike or not. Of course, I know that it might take the cost per baseball up a little, and I imagine that MLB goes through quite a few baseballs during an average season. But other than that, it would take some control away from the officials, which in my mind, is always a good thing.

Update: An anonymous poster reminded me that even if the "smart ball" had a chip in it, it still wouldn't be able to tell if the pitch was high or low. I'll admit, there is a part of me, that deep down likes the fact that some umpires have their own interpretation of the strike zone. It adds a special element to the game, and the more a pitcher or hitter knows the umpires they know what they can and cannot get away with. Sometimes it is fun and exciting, and other times it is frustrating and makes you want to rip your hair out. However, I don't like that the umpires have so much control behind the plate. There needs to be more accountability and I hate the fact that umpires can get away with blowing calls, or calling their own version of strikes and balls, or using different hand signals for safe and out, and no one says anything about it. Bottom line, there needs to be more consistancy and responsibility from the umpires. Any time the MLB can improve those factors is good for the game.

Of course, they could always stitch computer chips into the players knees and shoulders to take care of that problem as well...

New 12 second rule in baseball

Only 41 days til opening day, just in time to start discussing some new rule changes in the mlb!! One of them stuck out as being interesting. Over at the Pastime, they've mentioned that there is now a 12 second rule that states once the batter steps into the batter's box, the pitcher has just 12 seconds (the old rule was 20) to release the ball. I'm not sure how this will be enforced, and I'm not sure if the count gets reset if the pitcher steps off the mound. I've taken a few minutes to review the rules, and they do not mention any exceptions to the rule. I kind of doubt this will ever come into play, but we shall see if and how the umpires choose to enforce this. So, if you see an umpire waving his arm in the same motion a basketball referee counts the 8 seconds, don't be alarmed, he is not doing the robot dance behind the plate, he just misplaced his stopwatch.