Umps Need More than a Contract

The AP reported last night that MLB and it’s umpires are having successful negotiations and are close to agreeing upon a new contract. My question for both sides relates to the absolutely abysmal inconsistency that has emerged in umpiring over the last few years. It has become more commonplace to see missed calls that greatly effect the outcome of a game. Players get frustrated and then the situations have a tendency to escalate. The entire purpose of having umpires on the field is to enforce rules and keep the game controlled, and most of the time, neither are being accomplished. Off the top of my head, two games from the 2009 MLB Postseason come to mind when discussing umpiring incompetence.

My first memory from this past postseason is a bit painful for Red Sox fans. If you are still angry or bitter about how the 2009 playoffs ended, stop reading now. Still with me? Good. In game 1 of the Sox/Angels ALDS series, C.B. Bucknor had one of the worst games I have ever seen from a 1st base umpire. In the fourth inning, Howie Kendrick hit a grounder to shortstop Alex Gonzalez. Alex took his time and threw the ball high and wide of first base, but Kevin Youkilis made a nice play and swiped a tag on Kendrick when he was at least a half a step away from the bag. Of course, he was called safe by Bucknor. The second missed call was even more blatant than the first. In the sixth inning, once again Howie Kendrick hit a ground ball to the left side of the infield, but to Mike Lowell this time. Lowell set himself and whipped the ball across the infield to Youkilis at first. The throw was slightly high and pulled Kevin off the bag, but he was able to recover and touch the bag about a foot and a half in before Kendrick got there and he was called safe. Even Angels fans knew he was out by a mile.

The second game emblazoned in my mind was during the AL Championship Series that pitted New York against the L.A. of Oakland by the bay near Santa Monica North of Anaheim Angels. Flash back to game 4, if any Sox fan was still actually able to watch baseball at that point in the postseason. In the fourth inning of that game, Dale Scott, the umpire standing next to 2nd base, called Swisher safe on a pick-off play when he was out by about 27 feet. That was only the beginning of the umpiring trouble in that inning. Just a few minutes later, with Swisher standing on third base, he attempted to score on a fly ball to center field. He clearly waited until the ball was caught, tagged up and scored, but was then called out by veteran umpire Tim McClelland for leaving too soon from 3rd base. It may have been a make-up call for the previous mistake, but still unacceptable.

I am not pretending that umpires are not human and I know they make mistakes, but they are occurring with greater frequency recently. Luckily for the umpires, both of these games turned out to be blowouts and the calls probably did not effect the outcome of the games, but what if they were close games? Bad calls can kill a team’s momentum and change the entire direction of a game. History can not be changed, but the MLB should learn from it and develop an in-depth review process of their umpires to be sure they are held accountable and are constantly being retested. There is nothing more disheartening than watching your favorite team lose because of another person’s incompetence.