Just one more thing before we put this thread to bed. In the 3 main professional sports in this country the umps/refs are basically amateurs that get paid a stipend for their services but get little in the form of actual training and in baseball in particular there are no physical requirements for doing their job. So many are fat slugs some of whom are too overweight to even bend over the plate. I have long maintained that those calling the games should be held to higher standards in much the way that the players are. If you are too old, too fat or with insufficient vision you should not qualify for the job. Add to that a short fuse, thin skin and a belligerent attitude and it is easy to see that some of these guys should be cut from the herd.
Professional sports now have budgets in the billions of dollars with some players making hundreds of millions so you can't convince me that there isn't enough money to establish training facilities for umps/refs that would produce fit young men like the players themselves and pay them enough to make it a career. I am not a huge football fan and don't take the game seriously but I, along with many of you, groan when you see who is reffing a game with your favorite team. Some refs call a shitload of penalties and the game never develops a flow, just a flood of yellow hankies for 3 hours. In baseball umps have been almost an afterthought from the beginning with a low bar having been set for their performance. The umpires union has assured mediocrity. Basketball is probably the most difficult to call given the size of the players and the speed of the game. In recent years the game has become more like rugby with some WWF thrown in and I simply don't watch it anymore. Back when Jerry West, Wilt, Kareem, Oscar Robinson, Larry Bird, Dr.J and others were playing it was a better game. Nowadays a ref with a chip on his shoulder can change the outcome of a championship game by T'ing up a great player or calling phantom fouls that keep a player on the bench.
Fans are the ones that support this madness, they should become more indignant and pro active, start some grass roots campaign to improve the quality of game management by refs/umps and hold the leagues feet to the fire to produce a quality product. Back when a family of 4 could go to a MLB game for around $50 maybe bad umps were just the price of admission but nowadays the average price of a game can run from about $160 to over $300. Fifty dollar umps don't cut it anymore.
www.mlb.com
