Umpires Can Do No Wrong

Written by Gene Zarnick

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

We love to place blame. Whether it be on a player, a coach, a bad play call, or a missed opportunity, we always find some sort of reasoning for why one team lost and why one team won. For some reason we feel the need to analyze the game instead of just letting the outcome exist; we go back to each play and determine how each situation affected an upcoming situation during the game. There's nothing wrong with that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with placing blame on someone as long as it's the correct person getting blamed. These coaches and athletes are professionals or soon to be professionals and being in the entertainment industry, which they are, means that if they don't perform their jobs to their maximum potential then some sort of punishment will incur. It could be loss of fans, some barbs from the media, or the eventual misfortune of getting fired. There's only one problem with this though. Sports officials aren't held to the same standard. I don't know who made them above the game, but athletes, coaches, and owners definitely can't blame them, and even fans and the media are condemned somewhat if they do as well. I know their job doesn't seem as easy as it looks, but as a professional, they should be able to take the criticism and people criticizing should be criticized for doing so.

What really got my attention wasn't the horribly missed calls in the Yankees/Angels game yesterday, but how the media covers it. Tim McClelland clearly made some errors that any professional official shouldn't make and he took the guilt. Yay! Great! Awesome! He took ownership for his mistakes. Let's give him ump of the year award now. That's how the media portrays him after his press conference. Why? Why can't they press him for how reprehensible it is to blow those calls in a big playoff game like that? Why can't managers and players be upset and speak about the obvious blown calls? Nope, not allowed to do any of that. The worst thing an official can do is a makeup call. How many times have we heard announcers talk about makeup calls like it's normal and part of the game? Really? You blow one call so you intentionally blow another to try and make it even? I think we can go with the old adage that two wrongs don't make a right. I guess umpires can do no wrong.

I guess my problem isn't as much with the officials as it is the media and leagues protecting the umpires and refs. John Kruk stated on Baseball Tonight yesterday that it absolutely wasn't Tim McClelland's fault on those missed calls because it's unfair to an umpire at third base to give him the task of watching if a runner leaves too early on a tag. Are you serious John Kruk? If that's the toughest task they have to do all game then sign me up. Maybe there's a couple times during the game where there's a sac fly with a runner on third and he's trying to tell me that the umpire doesn't have the ability to watch the ball in the error, basically know when the outfielder is about to catch the ball, and then look down quickly to see if the runner's foot is off. The minimum MLB umpire gets paid $150,000 and senior officials get about $350,000. I think for that type of salary they can make the correct tag up play call. So basically I'm just trying to say that we should make all officials credible for their actions. They are professionals as well and I'm sick of the leagues and media defending every call an umpire makes so there's no backlash towards them. So if Tim McClelland can face the facts that he made bad calls then how about the leagues and media do the same as well. Let's stop pretending that umpires can do no wrong and start placing blame where blame is do.