Lindsay

Well, that is disturbing if it is the case, since it is not within replay rules. However, could he have been talking to the official scorer on the phone? And wouldn't that be allowed under the rules. Still, an embarrassing moment. It has happened to all of us, but for it to happen at the major league level. Southside is a White Sox fan site... take it for what you will. He probably just passed by the replay booth on the way to the umpires room to get his indicator, gave the appearance of using IR.

Gentle reminder that when you're relying on MLBAM's video clip, you're not seeing the entire play. That's when MLBAM's video highlight picks up the action.

Southside reports Cederstrom used instant replay to confirm the count... This isn't the first time Cederstrom has allegedly used replay in a non-HR to get the call right (Tampa Bay, June 2009). There was approximately a 3-minute delay while the the 3-2 count was confirmed.

It's always easiest to blame someone else instead of admitting that your team didn't make an ideal play.

Article = Written. Somehow turned it a little preachy at the end, but the idea is there: officiating is very much about keeping up appearances, psychology, and yes, even trickery.

A few commenters on my site pointed out that MLBAM doesn't adequately show the circumstances surrounding the ejection. What happens is after ball four to Zobrist (a borderline pitch which pitch f/x shows as a ball), Martin goes out to the mound to talk to Hughes, after all, his pitcher has walked two consecutive batters. When Martin comes back to the plate, he can be seen talking to Schrieber, calmly at first, and then slightly more animated. Martin appears to get a parting shot in, and as Schrieber is responding, Martin turns around and drops into his crouch. In other words, it looks like Schrieber is still talking to Martin, yet Martin isn't listening and figuratively walks away from the conversation. The field mics then pick up Schrieber walking out to face Martin and saying, "What's that supposed to mean?" Martin says something quietly enough where the mics don't pick it up, and Schrieber says "you're outta here," with the mechanic. Martin responds, "are you kidding me?" to which Schrieber says, "No, I'm not kidding you." If we're going with baiting, it looks like Martin baited Schrieber into a poor perception ejection. Once Schrieber came out to stand on top of home plate, he was committed to the ejection, and it is poorly perceived because it looks like Martin hasn't done anything wrong. As umpires and officials, a lot of what we do is based on perception. We have to sometimes be part magician. I deal more with penalties when I officiate basketball because we have the intermediate technical foul, as opposed to only the full-on ejection. When it comes to coaches or players chirping, they usually like to get their pot shots in when we're by the table on or after a report, as a trail table side, or anytime we're standing near 'em. Because of the proximity, the coach or player can effortlessly say something that shouldn't be said, something T-worthy. However, that's a bad T. A better T would be if the calling official takes a few steps back, even goes opposite to force the coach to step onto the court or player to leave his position and have to shout to be heard. Then, everyone knows what just happened and the T is a positively perceived T. That kind of long distance T is a good T. In baseball, it's very similar. If you want a good ejection, it has to be a positively perceived one. For it to be positively perceived, you can't eject from the crouch because the crouch is routine - a catcher has to crouch to receive almost every pitch (sans intent ball), that's how the entire game works. Ejecting someone for what is perceived as a routine action will always be a poorly perceived ejection. Eject a catcher while he's standing, turned away from his pitcher; that's going to be a more positively perceived ejection. One of my commenters wrote that there can be two ways to better handle it. First, of course, is to eject the guy while he's still standing and walking towards you. However, the even better way is to fight fire with fire. If the catcher wants to say something inappropriate in a casual tone from the crouch, you can administer penalties casually from the crouch. Casually tell the catcher he's gone... if the catcher is emotional enough to have stepped over the line to question your integrity/make it personal/etc, then that same catcher likely is emotional enough to completely lose his sense of decorum upon being told (albeit calmy) that he's ejected. Once the catcher is up, has wheeled around and is facing you while appearing animated, execute the ejection mechanic. That is more positively perceived than you going out in front of the catcher to talk down to him while he's in the crouch. The idea is that when the catcher is emotionally at a 10, you still have to be at your emotional baseline. Don't let F2 dictate how you handle yourself behind the plate.

Must have to do with Jim Joyce being out of the lineup... or Bill Hohn on the DL We only have 15 ejections so far in September this season, with a projected 17-20 by month's end. Last year excluded (with 35 ejections in Sept, 2010), September is usually a down month for ejections, what with penant chases and wild cards getting closer to finalization. For instance, 2009 had a drop from 35 August to 20 September ejections. Assuming we even make it to 20 ejections this September '11, that would be 21 ejections fewer than August 2011's 41 mark. Recent arguments just don't seem as virulent as they were earlier in the season and the fuse is correspondingly longer. Most noticeably though, we've seen a pattern, one of two things: we've seen both more "blowout" games AND more offensive struggle-pitchers' duel type games this month than is typical in September, and ejections tend to be less frequent in already-decided games and in games where the offense is completely lackluster. I'm all for having the players and coaches worry about playing and coaching for their teams rather than trying to do the umpire's job.

So if the margin of error is 1" that means it is +- 1" so it could just as well be marking the ball 1" too close as well as 1" too far. Yes, exactly. That's why, with a px value of 0.977, we create an interval of 0.977+0.0833, (0.894,1.060), which you'll notice is a range of 0.166, or 2*0.083... 1.060 - 0.894 = .166... In other words, the CI always carries a range of two inches to account for the possibility of both 1" too close as well as 1" too far.

Mike, Here's an interesting article about the whole thing. Yes, he did get the win. http://bleacherrepor...ate-was-ejected Yay! My article As I wrote in my article, I firmly believe retaliation via the hit by pitch is and has been a part of baseball culture for a long, long time. 8.02(d) gives the umpire the option of ejection or warning when it comes to an intentional pitch at the batter. It's certainly not straightforward either way. My QOC Quick Vote poll that is posted for every ejection on my site so far shows a very divided group: 40 "Correct" & 44 "Incorrect" votes... though it's not exactly a slam dunk either way, absolutely no one thought this was "Inconclusive." I admittedly have no way of knowing exactly what the crew discussed in their dressing room (I've always preferred the hockey term), but I'd like to think the last few paragraphs of my article puts you in the mindset of the HP Umpire during this episode...

Thanks for the welcome. I started to see "umpire-empire.com" show up as one of the leading "referring websites" in our site stats and thought I should come on over!

When we reviewed this play at the Umpire Ejection Fantasy League, we credited Reyburn with a correct call. Here's why: When determining Quality of Correctness for balls/strikes calls, we consider a few dynamics. In regards to this particular sequence, there are two key considerations to keep in mind. Several months ago, we did a feature called "Ending the Game with Science" regarding the pitch f/x technology. I hope you enjoy sports science... and math. First, we must determine the width of the working horizontal planar strike zone. We know the plate is 17" in diameter, or 8.5" on either side (radial value, Rule 1.05). We also know a regulation MLB baseball must have a circumference no greater than 9.25 inches (Rule 1.09). Circumference = pi * diameter; therefore, diameter = circumference / pi; diameter = 9.25 / 3.14159 ... = a baseball's maximum diameter is 2.944 inches. Since there are two sides of home plate that any part of the ball may pass through and still be within the strike zone, the working horizontal planar strike zone is 17" + 2.944" + 2.944", or 22.880 inches wide. The radius, therefore, of the working zone is 11.440 inches, which converts to approximately 0.953 feet (pitch f/x charts use a horizontal unit of feet). Pitch f/x carries with it a margin of error of approximately one inch, per the manufacturer (this may explain why the pitch f/x graph might look "off"). One inch is 0.0833 feet. By adding and subtracting 0.0833 feet to the observed px [horizontal] value, we create a confidence interval (of 100%): we know the pitch definitely was somewhere within this range. Computing the confidence interval (CI) for Reyburn's strike three pitch yields a lower bound of 0.894 ft and an upper bound of 1.060 ft (Pitch f/x generated a px [horizontal] value of 0.977 ft). Per our calculation above, the range of "definite strike" includes values between -0.953 feet and 0.953 feet, where negative values refer to the graph's left side [right handed batter's side] and positive values refer to the graph's right side [left handed batter's side]. Subtracting 0.953 from 0.894 yields approx. absolute value 0.059. Subtracting 0.953 from 1.060 yields approx. absolute value 0.107. Using this information, we find exactly what percent chance the pitch was actually a strike and what percent chance the pitch was actually a ball. For this pitch, it comes out to 36% chance strike & 64% chance ball. For us at the UEFL, a 36/64 split means there is a significant chance of the pitch being either a strike or a ball. Under the Kulpa Rule, we call this "borderline." For us, a determination of "borderline" routinely reflects the call on the field as correct. Generally speaking, we consider any legal pitch between 0 and 0.900 to always be a strike, between 0.900 and 1.000 to be borderline, and above 1.000 to be a ball (if there was no swing, etc.). Absolute strike (meaning a 100% probability the pitch is a strike) occurs when px decreases to 0.8697, while absolute ball (meaning a 100% probability the pitch is a ball) occurs when px increases to 1.0363. .900 is a 18/82 split, while 1.000 is a 22/78 split: we give more credence to the called ball; regardless, a CI which contains both sides of the .953 "strike zone border" is usually considered borderline, and therefore, correct. So that's the long story of why Reyburn got this call right.