Robinson comes to defense of umpires

[Umpire-Empire Reporter]

Umpires' boss Frank Robinson insists his men have been judged

unfairly.

More...

This feed brought to you by

Edited October 11, 2010 by Umpire in Chief

[mazzamouth]

Umpires' boss Frank Robinson insists his men have been judged

unfairly.

More...

This feed brought to you by

about time some one stood up for the umpires.. and look it is a former player and manager..LOL

[jjb]

Yeah, it was nice to see someone other than another umpire stick up for us for a change. But, as much as the nice squishy feeling I got reading it, it only lasted until I started reading the feedback responses. And then I started thinking: it just doesn’t matter if we go to replay or not, they (the fans) will still bitch and complain.

I used to call Adult SP Softball, which is another term for “Little League with no Parental Supervision.” The strike zone rules were simple: rear shoulder to front knee, over the plate, the arc between 6-12’. Simple, simple, you had 5-6 seconds to decide as the pitch came in. But the bitching came in: “too deep, that was outside, I can’t hit that, Blue”. So, the League got tired of the emails, and went to a Strike Mat: hit the mat, it’s a strike, miss it, it’s a Ball, and they’ve taken the decision from the umpires. And, we figured this game would be easy to call. Think so? Now, they just concentrated on the arc: “too high, that was flat, I can’t hit that, Blue.” The number of emails didn’t change in the slightest: they just went to another topic.

Anyway, it got me thinking about replay, and how, to some people's point of view, it will make the game “perfect”: no more “bad” calls, no more “games lost because of the Umpires”, no more arguments, no more ejections. Peace will Have Been Declared Throughout the Land. Yeah, right. Know what? It won’t change a thing. Because, even after the “replay” either upholds or changes a call, somebody, somewhere will have to make a decision about “what happens now?” And Let the Bitching Begin..

I get a kick out of people who use the Football Analogy to support their “We need IR in Baseball” Theory: it works there, why not here? They don't realize that It’s an Apples and Oranges Thing, because the game is completely different. In Football, the only one who can score is the guy with the football under his arm. In Baseball, nobody with ball scores and you can have more than one player score on a single play. Which raises a lot of “woulda/ coulda/ shoulda” issues.

Let’s take the Jeter “the ball hit me/no it didn’t” play. And let’s assume there’s Posada at second. And let’s assume the ball goes into play. So, the Umpire rules it hit him, and kills the play. Jeter goes to first, Posada stays at second. But wait, here comes the red flag! Now, they look at the replay, and find out the ball hit the knob. “Ok, Derek, go ahead and run”! Uh, not so fast. Jeter’s going to want to go to first anyway, the defense is going to say, “the ball was 4 feet from the catcher, he woulda thrown him out”, and Posada is saying “yeah, but I was stealing, and I could have scored on the throw”. The Defense will counter, "OK, then, we would have thrown to third, Posada should be out". And, somebody, somewhere will have to decide Who Goes Where. And we will have come Full Circle: “The Umpire should have scored Posada,(or called him out)", "Jeter should have been called out anyway, (or awarded first)",the Umpires suck, yada,yada,yada”. Coaches will bitch about the decision, coaches will be tossed, and what did we accomplish?

Look, the phrases “We Wuz Robbed!”, and “Kill the Umpire!” predate Television, much less Slo-Motion Replay. Bitching and moaning are as much a part of the game as beer and peanuts. Instant Replay isn’t going to change it. It’s a game Played by Humans, and Officiated by Humans.

They need to get over it.

[BrianC14]

Let's understand that Robinson is a front-office guy for MLB - - if he's heard to be criticizing MLB umpires, then it wouldn't play well in Peoria now, would it? In other words, if he were critical of them, he'd be criticizing his company's own product.

Now, that said, the consistent media blasting has been well over the top, IMO, so this reply from Robinson was likely undertaken to put some fires out.