We all recognise that even the best pitcher can hang a curveball up in the zone every now and then, just as the best hitter can be made to look foolish on a change-up every once in a while. Yet few sports fans are so understanding when it comes to the officials making mistakes. We always expect perfection from them and boy do we let them know when we think they’ve got something wrong.
If it’s a bang-bang play at first base, a close LBW decision or a tight offside call, once you have calmed down a bit you can generally accept that the official made the decision as they saw it and that every now and then they will just get it wrong. It’s a simple case of human error that you can never eliminate and even technology such as TV referrals are not fool-proof.
However, the general task of officials in any given sport is to run the game. They are in charge and it is their responsibility to make sure everything is conducted in compliance with the rules of the sport. On Saturday we saw two very strange sporting incidents involving the way officials ran their respective games.
The ICC Cricket World Cup final ended in complete and utter farce, which was sadly a very fitting climax to a tournament so atrociously organised (which, again, is sadly representative of the way the ICC runs cricket in general). You can read a summary on the BBC’s website, but effectively the umpires didn’t have a clue whether the match was over or not. As the BBC’s game blogger recorded at the time: “This is now a farce. All we need is for Steve Bucknor [umpire] to accidentally drop his trousers or squash a custard pie into Ricky Ponting’s [Australia’s captain] face.â€
On the same night, the umpire crew running the Baltimore-Cleveland game made a complete hash of it by officially awarding the Orioles a run, three innings after the play in question. Nick Markakis’s run was initially wiped-off despite the fact that he had crossed home plate before the Tribe had got the third out of the inning. The run should have counted and eventually the correct decision was made, yet in this case it clearly altered the state of the game as the Indians suddenly found themselves behind 3-2 rather than level at 2-2. The Indians have lodged an appeal and it would certainly seem fair if the game was replayed, although it’s unlikely this will happen.
Suffice to say, these situations are the stuff of nightmares for officials and I’ve no doubt that those concerned will feel very apologetic (not to mention embarrassed) to have made such crucial errors. But they were not split-second decisions relating to a close play; they were examples of the officials forgetting the rules, which is unacceptable.
Thankfully such incidents are extremely rare in baseball (not so much in cricket, e.g. the end to the 2005 Ashes series, the ball-tampering row last summer etc!) and we should look at it in this context. The odd times when things go wrong serve to highlight how often the officials do their job well. People generally say a good football referee is one you don’t notice. While I understand the sentiments, in some ways that says more about us fans than it does about the referee. We should notice when the officials do their job well. No proper sport can function without them and it is all too easy to take them for granted.
Mistakes such as those on Saturday will happen from time to time and it’s important that everyone learns from them (I’m sure every umpire has double-checked the rules as a result). It’s completely right to criticise such errors, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the many decisions made on a daily basis that they get correct and receive little to no thanks for.
The greatest football ref, certainly internationally, was Pierluigi Collina. If you don’t know the name, if you have even a passing interest in the international game, you’d know his face. (Bald scary looking guy:)) I think bad calls in football all even out over time. (Though have no statistical evidence to back that claim up AT ALL) Of course, then you get the apparent bias at places like Old Trafford. A game I saw on TV recently (can’t remember who they were playing), the ref was making some VERY dubious decisions that favoured Man Utd. (Then you get that incident in the World Cup where that ref game the same player 3 yellow cards…)
In baseball though, I’m not so sure it evens out. Unlike football where there’s usually at least one bad decision per game, baseball seems to excel in it’s umpiring.
I’ve not seen baseball for a few days now. MLB.TV processed my cancellation… Two oddities.
1) I can still load Mosaic and watch the multiple games, but if I want to watch a specific game, I can’t.
2) MLB are still sending me a “thank you for subscribing” EVERY SINGLE DAY. Seriously, we’re on day 11 now. I’ve written to them and said “STOP IT!” but they’re still coming.
Might get MLB.TV back. Can’t decide yet. It’s still a little pricey for me, but then there’s the only other option of Rogers Sportsnet, and horrible commercials, endless Blue Jay promos etc…
Hi Drood. Funnily enough, Collina was in the crowd watching the Liverpool-Chelsea match last night. What made Collina so good was that the players genuinely respected him, and I think that’s a crucial trait in any good official. In theory the official should always be respected, but human nature dictates otherwise in some cases. If the players know a ref is prone to errors or can be pressured into making decisions, then he has had it. The players always knew Collina would get the vast majority of his decisions right (particularly the big decisions) and would run the game firmly but fairly. I guess it’s that respect that leads to the idea of good officials being the ones you don’t notice. Because they are respected by the players, their games appear to be “easy” to referee (e.g. no big bust-ups, arguments, questioning of decisions etc).
I certainly agree with you that baseball umpires generally seem to do a very good job, particularly in relation to other officials in other sports. With things like K-Zone on ESPN, far from showing-up the umpires and allowing the broadcasters to highlight bad decisions, it actually reinforces how often the umpires get the decisions right. As you say, it’s comparatively rare to see umpires making bad calls.
As for the never ending saga of MLB.TV, I hope you’ve checked they are not billing you for a new subscription every day! It seems extreme even for them, but it’s probably best not to doubt their ability to mess subscribers about (although in fairness my personal experience with them has been relatively trouble free).