FOUL BALL
BUELL, JOHN
Foul ball The umpires called a strike, then the owners threw a curve John Buell Since the advent of the "instant replay," baseball has given us a second national pastime — the sport of...
...But the determination of the umpires, widespread recognition of their replacements' inadequacies, and even some talk of fan boycotts in some cities may have forced the owners to see, at least this time, that there is more to the sport than their profits...
...The Cincinnati Reds unanimously asked Commissioner Kuhn to intervene and get negotiations going...
...The umpires who replaced them this year clearly were not up to this standard...
...A major league umpire, who has often spent as many as ten years in the minors, earns an annual salary of from $ 17,500 in the first year up to $41,000 for the most experienced and highly rated — far below the average major league player salary of $60,000...
...Umpires lacking major league experience have great difficulty judging curve balls because few sandlot players know how to throw a good curve...
...Long-time fans have memories of a flamboyant Leo Durocher storming out of the dugout and kicking dirt on home plate — or on the umpire...
...The calling of balls and strikes seemed to be the most erratic part of the amateurs' performances...
...he has a wide plate...
...Foul ball The umpires called a strike, then the owners threw a curve John Buell Since the advent of the "instant replay," baseball has given us a second national pastime — the sport of second-guessing the umpire...
...Even good umpires make bad calls on occasion, but when controversies arise, the inexperience of the amateurs again makes a difference...
...Even management was forced to acknowledge the problems of the inexperienced umpires...
...Many major league players supported the umpires' strike...
...When inexperienced umpires make frequent mistakes, the game suffers...
...Baiting of umpires by players and managers has long been a tradition of the game because baseball is also a form of theater...
...But many of the strike fill-ins had trouble handling such baiting...
...The owners stonewalled as long as they could (about a quarter of the major league season...
...A "compromise" decision was reached: Mazzilli was ruled out but the Met runner on first was awarded second base, a fuzzy ruling at best...
...from several angles — so that millions of viewers can judge for themselves whether the ump made the right call...
...He gives you the low strike...
...It is a strike, though the inexperienced ump will often call it a ball...
...Most of the relatively amateur "replacement" umpires had little more than sandlot experience...
...The players are forced to take the uncertainties of the umpiring into account — and this takes the focus of fans and players away from its proper place, the game itself...
...In an Atlanta Braves game, one umpire was an optician, another a fireman...
...Stolen bases, balls and strikes, checked swings, and other close plays are reproduced in slow motion — often John Buell is an associate editor of The Progressive...
...The professional umpires were at loggerheads with the major league owners over contract terms, and the instant replays showed that the umpires' strike was having a pronounced effect on the quality of the game...
...The skilled umpire gives both batters and pitchers a consistent strike zone, and players come to know the pattern with each umpire...
...Yet baseball is not politics and there is no virtue in negotiation...
...Bowie Kuhn, longtime commissioner of baseball and apologist for the owners, admitted that the fill-ins were "not as good as the regular umpires...
...Confusion by the umpires as to whether the ball had been "trapped" or caught led to a twenty-eight-minute debate between the two managers and the umpires...
...A well-thrown curve breaks sharply not only toward the side but also toward the ground, often hitting the catcher's mitt close to the dirt...
...When such consistency is absent, the confidence of both hitters and pitchers suffers...
...Joe Torre, the Met manager, called the debate "like Camp David...
...There was a reason for this: Many owners hoped to crush the umpires' strike as a prelude to tough negotiations with the players, whose master contract expires this year...
...Unlike other baseball employes, they have no home field and cannot accept the hospitality of players or management...
...The irony of all this is that the quality of baseball is being endangered by economic stakes which, from the owners' position, amount, quite literally, to less than peanuts...
...While highly trained umpires — like other mortals — are fallible, the replays show they seldom make mistakes...
...The several thousand dollar increase in salary and expense money the fifty-four major league umpires were seeking would cost the owners less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of their gross operating revenues — far less than the $30 million they took in last year from the sale of peanuts and Cracker Jacks...
...This year the sport of evaluating the "men in blue" (who no longer always wear blue) took on special significance because of an umpires' strike at the start of the season...
...For their pay the umpires must spend the entire season — from March through October — on the road...
...When the settlement finally came in late May, it gave the umpires raises of about $5,000 a year and some time off during the season...
...Experienced umpires know how to give a manager his legitimate "beef without letting the game deteriorate into an endless, irresolvable dispute...
...In a game last April at New York's Shea Stadium, Met batter Lee Mazzilli hit a line drive to right field with runners on first and third and one out...
Vol. 43 • July 1979 • No. 7
