MISCELLANEOUS, Official Rules of Major League Baseball Options

[Orville]

An excerpt from the Chicago Tribune that really bothered me. This is Bob Davidson talking about his ejection of Ted Lilly from the dugout for arguing balls and strikes on Monday night.

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"I just found out I scored just about a 96 [out of 100] on my plate job, so my concentration was pretty [darn] good in my opinion."

MLB umpiring supervisors grade umpires on a daily basis after reviewing videotapes.

Davidson said out of 215 pitches Monday, he was told he'd missed 10.

"Eight of them were pitches I called strikes that shouldn't have been," he said. "The other two, one went against Pittsburgh and one went against Chicago. My concentration was excellent."
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So you've just been told that you made ten bad calls in one game.... and you're PROUD OF YOURSELF? I'm sorry, but I thought umpires were supposed to strive for perfection.

I don't care how "acceptable" a percentage that is by MLB standards, when two teams are counting on you to make the right calls, don't talk about ten missed calls like it's nothing. I mean, one bad call changing the course of a game is bad enough, and here's a major league umpire being quoted in a major newspaper that he is perfectly fine with missing ten. I mean, what the hell?

And while we're on the subject of umpiring in Chicago... Mark Carlson, classy move tossing Zambrano for your own bump tonight. The call was close, I don't know who was right, but don't toss a player for contact that you made yourself, that's just brutal.

P.S. I'm not a Cubs fan, so don't bother playing that card with me.

[RedSalt]

MLB UMPIRE: a question about umpires conferring and overturning a call. (Sorry it's so long)

In a game today (Sept. 2, 2009), with one out in the top of the 6th, White Sox catcher Ramon Castro hits a long fly ball towards rightfield in the Metrodome that Twins RF Michael Cuddyer leaps and appears to catch snow-cone fashion up against the baggie wall.

Initially, the umpiring crew (presumably either 1B umpire Scott Barry of 2B umpire Jeff Nelson) rule the catch a catch and the batter is out, but after White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen complains, the umpiring crew confers, with 3B umpire and crew chief Tim Tschida seeming to lead the discussion.

Meanwhile, TV replays show CLEARLY and without dispute that the ball did NOT touch the baggie wall, and that Michael Cuddyer has, without a doubt, made a catch. There is no doubt that the initial call was correct, and that the call should NOT be overturned.

During the umpire conference, it appears that Umpire Tschida and HP umpire Bob Davidson are having the majority of the discussion, and ultimately, the conference breaks up and Davidson indicates that Castro be awarded second base - that the ball hit the wall before Cuddyer's catch.

I have three questions:

1. Viewers have been led to believe that, for a call to be overturned in a situation like this, some umpire must say in the conference that he ABSOLUTELY saw the ball hit the wall, and the call should be overturned. Is this true? And if so, how does this crew rationalize the fact that some umpire bore witness to something (the ball hitting the wall) that replays definitively do NOT show happen? In other words, I believe that some umpire in this conference claimed to see something that did not actually happen, but am not sure.

2. The replays seemed to indicate the 3B umpire Tschida and HP umpire Davidson were having most of the discussion during the umpire conference, even though the play happened closest to 2B umpire Nelson and 1B umpire Barry, one of whom presumably initially made the "out" call. Is this accurate, or what is the protocol for these discussions? Further, HP umpire Davidson was the umpire who, after the conference broke up, made the call that Castro go to second base. Does this mean that Davidson was the one who actually overturned the call and claimed to see the ball hit the wall, or does the HP umpire always do this? What is the protocol here, if any, and what happened here?

3. Lastly, if memory serves me correctly, it was Tim Tschida who, in the 2007 NL Wild Card playoff game, incorrectly made the call that a clear Rockies home run had, in fact, NOT gone over the fence in centerfield in Coors Field? While this play, under the current review system, would have been reviewed and presumably overturned, my concern is that Umpire Tschida has been involved in two distinct plays in my memory where he either made a bad call on a ball hit to the fence or was the crew chief in one case and made the bad call in the other. Is there any system of ramification for repeated errors of a similar nature, particular if Tschida was the one who made the incorrect overrule in today's White Sox-Twins game? And while this last question sounds like I'm trying to be funny, I'm not... but could a situation like this result in a mandatory vision test for Umpire Tschida?

Thanks for your time in answering this. I found this situation fascinating since it was an incorrect overrule, and I was relieved (as I'm sure the crew was once they saw the replay) that Castro did not, in fact, score, so the incorrect overrule did not directly affect the outcome of the game.