Encarnacion's play at third...

[Reds1]

sorry, I clicked safe on accident so take one off. LOL. He was out twice IMO. Hip and then again on the cafe area. He wouldn't have reacted that way if he missed him. You can act with that emotion just for acting.

[Homer Bailey]

Another thing I thought of. Doumit was out of the basepath. Once he turned around, the basepath became redefined as a straight line from where he turned right back to the base. He clearly went to the left of this line to make the slide, as his slide ended up well left of the base. The umpire CALLED HIM SAFE BEFORE HE TOUCHED THE BASE. Just an unbelievably bad call. He was out three times (tagged twice, and out of the basepath).

[George Anderson]

[QUOTE=AtomicDumpling;1682637]

Is umpiring at the MLB level any more difficult than umpiring at the AAA level? I can't really imagine why it would be. Maybe some added pressure due to larger crowds and TV viewers

.


Good question and I really cannot answer that but I coincidentally have a phone call in to a freind of mine on a different manner who umpired AAA baseball for 8 years so I will ask him and let you know.

Umpires should be mostly invisible. They need to be robotic, impartial arbiters of the game. Too many of them love the attention and seek it by making dramatic gestures on strike calls and out calls. They are in-your-face confrontational jerks. They get paid a lot of money for doing a very easy job. Most of them are pretty good most of the time, but there are a few that give the rest a bad name.

I don't think the confrontational bad attitude is there like it was say ten years ago. It still exists but not nearly as common as it was.

For me personally, I find umpires to be very distasteful. It really ruins my enjoyment of the game to see an umpire blow a call and then act like a cocky, arrogant butthole when the screwed team dares to dispute his mistake. I find it so disheartening that I often just turn off the game and go do something else. I watch baseball for enjoyment and I don't enjoy getting screwed over.

I can only speak for myself but I have blown MANY calls in my amateur umpiring career and to be honest I rarely feel terribly bad about it because it is part of the game and RARELY does one call deside a game. In many instances I have walked off the field and heard coaches, players fans etc tell me that I cost them the game. Inside I am laughing at them because people who say things like that have zero credibility with me. On the rare instance where a team plays flawlessly where no errors where made, no base running blunders were made, all plays including bunts were executed and the coach made zero bone head moves but if I happen to blow say a play at home to cost them the game the YES I feel bad. But how often do you see a team play with perfection ? So why should you expect the same perfection from a umpire when the players and coaches are far from perfect?

[OnBaseMachine]

EDWIN ENCARNACION remains mystified as to why he was ejected Tuesday night on a play at third base by umpire Chad Fairchild.

Encarnacion slapped a tag on Pittsburgh’s Ryan Doumit on a play at third and Fairchild called him safe. Then, two seconds later, he ejected Encarnacion.

“First, I tagged him twice. Once on the butt and once on the hip,” said Encarnacion. “And I didn’t say anything to the umpire. Nothing. I didn’t have a chance to talk. He threw me out before I talked. I didn’t have a chance to talk. I’ve never seen that, never seen anybody get thrown as quickly as that.”

Fairchild said he ejected Encarnacion for throwing his glove, “But I didn’t throw my glove.” Encarnacion raised it and slapped it against his side, but didn’t throw.

“If he looked at the replay, he knows he made a bad call,” said Encarnacion.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/con...incinnatireds/

[George Anderson]

I give it a lot more weight when it is a situation like where EE was in terms of him knowing that he made the tag. He would have felt the glove on body. He would know that he did that, and his immediate almost instinctual reaction was to protest the call.

In that instance yes. But to many times players go nuts over for example a called pitch that they didn't like and they were very wrong.

[membengal]

Right. But I was focusing on that instance.

And, what do you make of the fact that EE got run and didn't even say a word? Seems likely the ump knew he blew the call and then, embarrassed, compounded the problem?

[George Anderson]

Seems likely the ump knew he blew the call and then, embarrassed, compounded the problem?

I think its blatantly obvious that Chad Fairchild is not ready to umpire in MLB. Just like Homer Bailey isn't ready to pitch in MLB, Fairchild isn't ready to umpire in MLB. Fairchild was just a fill in so I think it will be a while before we see him back.

I would like to see a system in place where umpire like players are demoted if they cannot do the job. Umpires now once the make the bigs are there for life unless they really, really bad. I would rather see this system in place before some type of computer system that calls balls and strikes.