@JohnF posted:I hear many umpire associations are looking for new members - seems we have a couple volunteers here
Consistency is hard when your P gets lucky 1 out of every 5 pitches and it crosses the plate... Some have no idea where the ball is going when it leaves their hand - scary, huh? There are C's that don't help their P out by awful mechanics - snatching, rolling, falling. Damn you know a curve is coming don't freaking stand up!! There's far too many parents that believe it's where the C receives the ball that matters. I've seen C be > 4' behind the tip of the plate - go figure how hard that can be on an umpire!
A baseball is ~3" in diameter, the plate is 17" wide, there is supposed to be 6" between plate and outside edge/line of the batters box... If a bat averages 32" - there's a math quiz about reachability especially for 6' batter, but I agree a ball in the other box shouldn't be a strike... So it's not every umpire ;-)... Down the channel - sure it's possible. If the "true zone" was called *both ways* in every game, it'd probably a much longer game - is that what you want? Or do you want the strike zone as written only for your batter? It's not an exact science and there's so much that goes into it.
Not so in agreement with this: If the "true zone" was called *both ways* in every game, it'd probably a much longer game - is that what you want?"
IF the high strike and inside strike was called it would counter the issue with the outside strike. Just as many balls are called on those pitches as strikes are on the 6 inches off the plate... Sure, Amateur umpires, a ball or maybe 2 off the plate, sure, you're not perfect,,, but when you can tell an umpire just wants to go home, that's stinks.
The games now have 2 hour limits, I mean that's pretty short, so if it ends by time because pitchers can't throw strikes, who can complain.
I don't give umpires a hard time, ever... they get enough of that from too many coaches and players, maybe though if they called things straight up, there would be less hassle, cause they'd have the rule on their side. But maybe not, usually the times I've seen coaches ride an umpire it was mostly because they just did it on everything, half the time not knowing the rules themselves. I typically associate that with football coach mentality vs baseball coach. Umpires will talk with you over a call if you are civil, but too many just think if they ride the ump they'll get later calls, not likely. And parents, to them every call is wrong against them, it's pretty ridiculous.
As far as hitters, you are supposed to try and hit good pitches, sure sell out to get that 2 strike bad pitch, foul it off if you can, but when you go down 0-2 on pitches that you should not be swinging at, that's tough. Why would I swing at a 0-0 or 0-1 pitch that the best I can do with it is a weak grounder to second.
Again, not complaining about a bad umpire or call, just wanting to understand why it's so consistently called a strike, when It's so obviously not. What I'm hearing is it's an organizational attempt to shorten the games. My preference on that would be expand up and down, at least it's hit-able, especially now in HS nothing is ever called above the belt.
BTW, in North East... 6' is the anomaly