Let's Review The Tape, Then Fuss!

The first pitch was high and away. “Strike one!” the umpire bellowed. I stepped out and rubbed a little dirt on my hands….and glanced back. This wasn’t my day. And I had a history with this particular umpire. He tried to enlist me to play for a team he was putting together a couple of years before. I chose to play elsewhere. I was hoping he wouldn’t recognize me. “Strike two!” This time the pitch was way high and way outside. I stepped out again. And glared at him! The call wasn’t even questionable. He remembered me alright!

My Mother, brother and future wife were watching me play in college for the very first time. The tying and go ahead runs were on base for goodness sakes! And the at bat was being stolen from me! I watched a curve break over the middle of the plate. Surely after those first two horrendous calls, he’d even this up a little.

“STRIKE THREEEEEEEE!”

I stood there for a second, frozen in my tracks. What just happened couldn’t have just happened! I turned around, stuck my mouth in between the bars on his facemask and went berserk. I yelled, shouted, screamed, hollered and jumped up and down until Coach Carter got out there and pulled me off of him. I don’t remember to this day what I said. In two seasons of college baseball, it was the first words I’d ever had with an umpire. Those calls could have cost us the game. It embarrassed me in front of my teammates, coaches and family. Only my good looks and natural charm kept my future bride from bolting forever.

I felt like an idiot, but let me tell you, he was wrong! I wasn’t arguing without merit. I wasn’t trying to show anyone up, cause a spectacle or bring attention to myself. I just wanted a chance to say he missed the call.

I thought about that rowel just this past week when I read about the coach who was fined for questioning a referee’s call in his post game remarks. It happened to be an NBA game and apparently there is a rule against coaches criticizing, belittling or casting aspersions on the officiating. I thought “that ain’t right”. Look at the replay. If the coach had a legitimate beef, fine the referee for making a bad call.

It just seems to me that everyone needs to be responsible for his actions. If the coach makes enough bad judgments (unless he recruits extraordinarily well) he’ll be shown the door. I’m sure officials in every league at most every classification have standards and guidelines and levels of competency they must maintain. And if you watch a lot of slow motion replays, they certainly get it right more often than they get it wrong. I applaud their intelligence, their diligence, their fairness and their commitment to getting it correct.

But they are very human. They can miss a call. And I don’t mind that. I understand that. What I don’t understand is placing the arbitrator in some kind of an off limits bubble where they seem above the sweat, blood and tears of the action. You fine a coach twenty thousand dollars for “statements toward an official” and guess which one looks like he was wrong?

The Southeastern Conference is notorious for this. Unless you coach football at the University of Tennessee you can’t say a discouraging word about umpires, head linesmen, referees, another team, the home office or the color of the opposing mascot’s uniform. The guy from Florida (I can’t think of his name) mentioned that an official “might” have missed a call….oops, send in $30,000!

I’m not mad here. I have no ax to grind. And I’m not advocating that we all go around on the look-out for where we can take a critical shot. I’ve written too many “live and let live” articles for you to conclude that. I just think we all should be held accountable for what we do. If the coach calls a quarterback sneak on fourth and twenty-three from his own six yard line with one minute left in a tied ballgame, the field judge should be able to state afterwards that that was the dumbest call he’d seen in all his many years of refereeing. But if that same field judge throws a flag for holding in a key spot in the game when nobody was holding, then the coach ought to have the same leeway. 

This ain’t rocket scientist stuff.

I write a bad article, boy howdy, do I hear about it! I’ve got a friend down the hall who frequently comes in shaking his head, “That was the absolutely worst story that I have ever read! Did you actually go to school to learn how to do this?”

I get cards and letters admonishing me to take up archery. Or get a plumbers’ license. I’ve had folks call in to remind me that I’m no Hemingway or Faulkner. My wife just covers her nose over a particular bad one. I written stories so uninspiring my dog pretended not to know me. 

As much as I would like to, I can’t fine these people for being honest.

The SEC shouldn’t be allowed to either.              

Don Simmons was umpiring a baseball game in Brenda Ellis’s backyard eons ago. Brenda lived on Stonewall Street, just down from us. He called a strike on me. This was a pick-up game of eight and nine year olds. I protested. He said, “The way you swing the bat, it won’t matter what I call.”

“Well, I could umpire much better than you’re doing with that blind eye you’re using…….”

We switched places. He hit for me. I umpired. The game flowed on, each of us with a better appreciation of what the other fellow was doing. 

You know, there’s a thought for big-time sports to mull over.

Respectfully,

Kes