UPDATE: Thome suspended 1 game. He musta said something untoward...
Wish I was a little bit taller...
I'm biased in two places on this one...first, the W. Sox are playing the Tigs. Second, I tend to side with umpires/referees on most things (despite a seething problem with authority, just ask those three cops I got fired in Jackson, Mich...booyah.)
The issue has long been Ozzie Guillen running his mouth about pretty much anything. Add to this, the official "correct" call percentage in MLB hovers at around 95 percent as judged by the video monitoring system the league installed several years back, according to what the MLB veep said at the camp.
So that leaves you with 1 out of 20 pitches being called either a ball or a strike when "by-the-book" it is actually the opposite. (for an amateur, this climbs to well around 6 out of 20) The point is, every game sees more than 10 pitches that are technically called improperly. The best you can do as an Ump is to make sure you're calling the same zone no matter which team is batting. And that's usually what the league, the managers and -- to a lesser extent -- the players hold the Umpires to.
The White Sox are off to a very poor start with Umpires this year with Ozzie loudly getting into a tiff with Phil Cuzzi (10) the other day, saying he calls strikes against the Sox because Cuzzi doesn't like him. Ehh.But the attitude pervades the organization. Today, Jim Thome was tossed by Home Plate Ump James Hoye (a rookie-ish fellow) for arguing balls and strikes. It happened after Thome sat on a strike out pitch that ate full plate and fronted at the tips of his generously tall knees (the southern border of the strike zone is defined the hollow of the knee, or the top of your shin really). He lost it. The announcers (the hot-and-cold combo of “Hawk” Harrelson and former OF Darrin Jackson) spent the rest of the game complaining about the call, the zone and how the Sox "had the bat taken out of their hands." By the end, the Sox gabbers suggested the Tigers had a different zone (Magglio and Inge both suffered borderline calls late) and that "a strike for us is pretty much anything that hits the glove of Pudge Rodriguez." On and on it went.
The point is...one pitch at one at-bat is not worth this amount of anger. For 100+ years, the league has accepted this -- hence, the reason you get tossed for arguing balls and strikes. If this was allowed, the games would never end. And worrying about it these days with the Umps under video grading is tantamount to giving yourself a complex -- always a no-no for a hitter, pitcher or team.
But it's not just baseball. Those that complain usually only serve to get inside their own heads (Kobe, Mark Cuban, Guillen) and truly lose any sympathy from the Umpire/Referee crews. It seems the Sox are being consumed by this attitude from the top already. I know this much, the Tigers liked seeing Thome leave the game more than any of the Umpires did.
Huddy Extra: If you got to see it, you can really see the difference in an experienced salt like Cuzzi taking flak and a young ump like Hoye. With the old guys, the eyes are bored, the bodies are firm, posture perfect...great body language. With Hoye, his eyes were bright and he had slightly nervous body language. It's subtle, but it's there. When Ted Barrett (65) -- who happened to by on 3rd in this game -- was screaming in my face, playing an irate manager after I blew a call, I had the benefit of sunglasses to hide my nonverbal expression...which was certainly screaming "help" thanks to Barrett's generous height of at least 6' 4" with a build and bark to match. Hoye had no such protection, but fortunately had the full support of his crew in case he was getting nervous.
I saw a clip of the other Umpires in the crew before the game giving Hoye a fist bump on the chest to pump him up before the game. So he must be a real newbie, though I saw he had been behind the plate before from some box scores. He handled himself well, I thought. And he kept his zone the same after the dust up from the normally staid Thome.
5 comments:
Love the ump talk. Love it.
I have several points to make but the first one is most important so I'm posting a separate comment: Hawk and Deej STYNK.
1. The Tigers earned the win and I have no qualms about the way the game was called.
2. In his 18-year, Hall of Fame career, Thome has only been tossed for arguing balls and strikes twice. I'm thinking he had bigger issues than just one pitch.
3. We'll have to discuss the nature of 'official' and 'correct' up at Lake George. But you'll have a hard time convincing me it's not up to the ump to decide whether the black (for example) is a strike.
Or that hitting the black can be a strike for one pitcher and not another, in the same game.
4. Having said that, why should any ump give Ozzie's players the benefit of the doubt, when he makes a public display of calling out a union brother?
I wish Ozzie would deal with stress by smoking cigs like Lelander does, but it is what it is.
It's going to cost his players from time to time. That's just something you have to deal with when your skipper skews boorish.
Did you see Eddings whip that ball at Floyd? I told you they had it out for us!!!!
It's the pitcher's job early to get a sense for how the ump will the game. Then the ump's job is to stick to it. Then, after this is settled, everyone else needs to adjust to it !
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