Umpires

Due to a particularly tough game last night I decided to focus on a part of the game that has the most power in this sport. Whether it is soccer, volleyball, basketball, or baseball umpires and referees are in control of the game. Their judgement and decisions throughout the match or game can be interpretted many ways, and it is always tough if you think your team is getting screwed out of some easy calls. In basketball a referee can let the players play physical or he can have a tight leesh by calling minor contact fouls early to send a message, the same goes for soccer and other sports that involve constant contact. In baseball a new call is necessary almost every 10-15 seconds. The job of calling balls and strikes is not an easy one by any means, yet it isn't too hard to be consistant. Now what I am doing right now isn't crying about a loss or saying that an umpire blew our game, I am basically telling you how an umpire can get in the head of both players and coaches. If you are out in the field and you see your pitcher working his butt off to throw strikes without giving up a run for you and your team then you want him to get what he deserves. A low ball is thrown that looks like it could be a strike, yet the umpire in turn calls it a ball. My emotion is simply "Shucks, that looked pretty good, get him next pitch man." You get out of the inning and you go up to bat and the pitcher throws a ball to you that looks a little low, so knowing the previous information you take the pitch since you know your own strengths and weeknesses in the box. This time however the umpire calls it a strike. The immediate thought in your head is usually never good, however as a batter it is never good to let one call dictate your whole at bat, thats why you get three strikes not one. I have had umpires tell me they have missed calls before or they "probably" missed that one. They have asked me if I indeed tagged a runner out or if I just sold them well. I have tagged out runners with no doubt and the umpire swore he thought i didn't, and I have been no where close to a tag and he called them out. In that ramble I wanted you to see that sometimes it really is a coin flip, they do have a tough job, but they have to make a call either way, if they saw it well or not. They can't say "I honestly didn't see what happend, what did you see?" What a lot of teams ask for if they think they are bad calls is for the umpire to simply call it the same on both sides. When you get to college this becomes more important because the talent level goes up. If a strike zone is too big then pitchers are going to take advantage of it and make a lot of batters look silly by forcing them to swing at pitches they normally wouldn't, or at anything that is close to the plate. If the strike zone is too small then it is going to force the pitchers to throw the ball right down the middle, which usually results in a lot more hard hit balls. A small strike zone is sometimes called "getting squeezed" and that is indeed what we all believe happend last night, yet it isn't even worth getting mad. Theres always tomorrow, and if you have games every day then you can't worry about umpires, you'll have a short career if you focus too much on them instead of your game.