rules | The Baseball Zealot

Are sports’ officiators losing their hold of the game?

At the risk of sounding like old man played by Dana Carvey on SNL it didn’t used be like this. We watched our sports and took it like a man.

Bill Klem, a Hall of Fame umpire who worked the game for 37 years, was known for saying, It ain’t nothin’ till I call it”. Not anymore. Everything is held in the court of public opinion and if the public is lucky, that will sway the sports’ organizations decisions.

Just in the past month, we’ve had some close calls. Baseball fans are going mental calling for the reversal of Jim Joyce’s last call of Armando Galaraga’s near perfect game. (I don’t agree with Bud very often but I’ve come around to his thinking on this. Can you imagine the precedent this would set?)

Earlier this month, umps at the Women’s Softball College World Series were called into question a couple of times… enough that it was brought up in the media.

And now during the 2010 World Cup (after USA’s unfortunate departure), FIFA is coming under fire for their officiating. Guess what? They’re now considering high-tech solutions to solve their problems.

So either a) officiators are somehow getting worse, b) the fans are getting more picky about their officiating, or c) the media doesn’t have anything better to cover.

My guess is that it’s a combination of b and c.

Quite simply, what’s happening now is that the men in blue are stuck in an era where there have been some high profile missed calls. As a result, the spotlight is on them where is shouldn’t be. You know an umpire is doing a good job when you don’t remember him and can’t recall his name. THEN he’s doing his job.

Now however, this issue is stuck in neutral and everyone is looking for the umpire to make a mistake. And when he does, here come the typical articles in press/blogosphere… “SEE SEE!! We need to institute/expand instant replay!!”.

As I feel with most things in life, baseball should not make snap decisions based on high profile mistakes or media-driven policy.

To me, it ain’t nothin till an ump calls it.

Can wood bats make a comeback in college baseball?

Is college baseball considering making a move back to wood bats? It appears so.

Currently, colleges almost universally employ aluminum bats and its distinctive ‘ping’. Now, it looks like there might be a movement to get back to using the traditional wood bats. According to this article at the NCAA web site, Division II in particular is serious about contemplating the change:

Pitchers in high school or community college who are throwing the ball between 88 to 92 miles per hour typically are drafted into professional baseball, (Flagler head coach Dave) Barnett said, because scouts look initially for velocity. Those who either don’t sign or are not drafted who have that kind of speed will be scooped up by Division I. That leaves Division II schools being in more of a development mode, Barnett said.

That makes wood the right choice for Division II, Barnett said. He and his colleagues in the Peach Belt – especially since Brunk arrived – have talked about changing but are reluctant to do so unless the division acts collectively.

Interest on the Division I level?

But is Division II the only level considering a change? Maybe not.

This month, the Big Ten Network posted a poll on its baseball page asking, “Costs aside, should college baseball move to use wood bats or stay with sweet "ping" of metal?”. Rather odd, considering the Big Ten is comprised of Division I teams.

As far as I’m concerned, the results aren’t incredibly important. If you’re interested, Wood has the edge 70.7% to 29.3% (surprised?? yeah, I was, too).

However, what IS important is that the poll is there at ALL. It tells me two things:

1) The issue is on their minds.. that it’s even an issue at all. By “their” I mean the Big Ten Network who certainly has the close ears of the Big Ten itself.

and

2) It’s a potential way to push the issue into the public’s minds (and by “public”, I mean the small subset of the public that follows college baseball. Polls can go both ways. Yes, they may be a good way to gauge opinion but they are also a tool to throw a wet noodle issue onto a wall and perhaps see if it sticks.

From the looks of it, Division II college baseball is on their way to discussing the issue of wood bats on the diamond. It seems those conferences have more to gain from it considering the development of the players involved. Still, it will be interesting to watch this story unfold.

MLB panel to announce proposed changes April 4

A panel has been taking a hard look at the current way the game of Major League Baseball is being played. And before you know it, April 4 to be exact, there will be an announcement if there will be any proposed changes. If I know the MLB, there will be some. They can’t leave well enough alone.

Bud Selig is at the forefront of this effort.

Here’s a quick look at some of the big issues the panel hopes to address:

Eliminating the All-Star-World Series home advantage
Adding instant replay for balls hit down the foul lines
Changing the playoff schedule
A variety of “pace of game” issues

The pace of game issue has been a thorn in MLB’s side for a while. Jonathan Papelbon was fined $5000 last year for taking too long on the mound. Now it’s come to light that three teams, the Yankees, Dodgers and the Red Sox have been particularly named by this panel as violating the pace of game. According to Stats LLC, all three teams average over three hours.

As for the playoff schedule, I know many fans that would back the panel on a change on this one. The early proposed change is to eliminate current days of rest to shorten the overall postseason.

There are a few other issues being discussed. Those include changes to the amateur draft and realignment to “better group teams of similar economic situations”. I’m not sure exactly what that means and I’m not sure I want to know.

Now most of these rule or policy changes should they see the light of day, won’t take effect right away. We wouldn’t see the changes to the postseason, for example, till the 2011 season. As for the game play changes, they might take effect sooner. Changes to hasten the pace of baseball games, for example, would probably take effect ASAP. MLB feels they are under the gun by fans to speed the games up.

And if you’re interested in how *I* feel about the above proposed changes:

Yes, let’s just pretend it never happened. Despite how it was trumped up by MLB and media, the home advantage rule had limited effectiveness.
No, though I’m not surprised it’s being proposed. Proponents of the original instant replay rule claimed over and over that “it will only be used for home run calls”. I knew it would be a slippery slope.
Yes. The postseason schedule takes too long and the cynic in me wonders if it’s to prolong how long money can be made from it.
It depends. I don’t like long games either but I also don’t like changing how players play the game. I wonder what MLB would have done about Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky, had he played in these times.

Your thoughts?

Selig’s on-field committee: Where are the players and the umps?

Bud Selig has announced the formation of a 14-person committee that will discuss all “on-field” matters. Selig claims there are no “sacred cows” and top of his list is “pace of game”.

What is interesting is the composition or perhaps what is lacking from from the committee. Here is list:

Current Managers

Tony La Russa
Jim Leyland
Mike Scioscia
Joe Torre

Current or Former GMs

John Schuerholz
Andy MacPhail
Terry Ryan
Mark Shapiro)
Chuck Armstrong
Paul Beeston
Bill DeWitt
Dave Montgomery

special advisor

Frank Robinson

media observer

George Will

The good news is that have some current managers on the committee. Though as the as the article points out, there will be no current players or umpires submitting their feedback. In my opinion, if you’re going to be talking about issues that relate to on-the-field or gameplay issues (for example, oh I don’t know… pace of game), it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get some input from players.

And to not include any umpires is beyond me. After all, they will be the ones who will be enforcing any rule changes, if any.

And mark my words, there will be some. Because if Selig says “pace of game” will be among the first topics discussed, those aren’t just idle words. He’s making a definitive statement that something will be done about pitchers like Jonathan Papelbon.

…and really, George Will? I respect his knowledge of baseball but whenever I hear his name in the context of the sport, I can’t help but think of this SNL video.

Ron Gardenhire, the umpires and a red flag

I’ve never been a proponent of instant replay in baseball. I’ve always felt that deep down, we should stick with the human element. Like umpire Bill Klem once said, “It ain’t nothin’ till I call it”.

But dang, some calls the umps are making recently are making it difficult to maintain my case. There was the incident last Tuesday with Randy Marsh making a questionable call of Bobby Keppel’s pitch. Did it hit Brandon Inge’s uni or not? Marsh said no.

Now, Minnesota Twins skipper Ron Gardenhire is floating the idea of a “red flag” now in response to an incorrect call of a Joe Mauer ground rule double on Friday night (it’s not the first time he’s brought this idea up. He suggested it after a bad call in July).

Gardenhire’s summary of the red flag proposal:

"I’ve said all along that I want a red flag," Gardenhire said in the Star-Tribune after the Cuddyer play. "If you use it and you’re wrong, you don’t get to use it the rest of the game. If you use it and you’re right, you get your red flag back and that would save a lot of money (for ejections)."

The red flag? Bad idea. But worse, it’s a only a natural extension of the current implementation of instant replay and one of the reasons I was against it in the first place. We’re just headed down that road now and there’s not a lot to stop us.

I don’t blame Gardenhire. He’s gotta be pretty pissed. But there’s one tenet I’ve always held to. Whether it’s baseball, business, politcs or whatever, you never make policy decisions based on one particular incident. It might look good now in the heat of the postseason and with the emotionally charged atmosphere of an admitted bad call but it needs to hold up to the test of time.

To his credit, Gardenhire did leave himself an out:

“(the) great thing about baseball is the human element, and we always want to keep it that way. We made enough mistakes ourselves and we missed opportunities to win the game. It just goes that way."

Maybe this red flag idea will just go away.

This year’s rule changes to be considered

MLB team owners are set to decide on two rule changes for Major League Baseball. They’re relatively minor changes but worth noting.

The first rule change only codifies what essentially took place during the rainy Game 5 of the World Series between the Phillies and the Rays. Under current rules, these games only become official when the trailing team record 15 outs.

Selig used rules governing suspended games at the time, but said had it been stopped with the Phillies leading, 2-1, in the fifth, the game would have gone into a rain delay until it was safe to resume.

“We’ll stay here if we have to celebrate Thanksgiving here,” he said.

After the last owners’ meetings in New York in November, Selig said he told the owners that his interpretation of the rule would be codified.

The second change under consideration regards how the decision is made who hosts one-game tiebreakers. Currently, coin flips a few weeks beforehand are used to make the decision.

Teams are asking that head-to-head records be used instead.