Blind Umpires Archives - River Avenue Blues

Previously on What the umpire saw: Derek Jeter tries to steal third base with no outs in the first inning. While the throw beat him to the base, his hand touches third before the tag. Umpire Marty Foster calls him out. “I was told I was out because the ball beat me, and he didn’t have to tag me,” Jeter alleges, and crew chief John Hirschbeck, who called Jeter “the classiest person I’ve been around,” promises an investigation….

When last we saw Monday’s umpiring crew, things were looking bleak for Marty Foster. Hirschbeck had refused to make him available to the media, and Derek Jeter was adamant in his critique. I blamed Foster for the bad call at third, and Cliff Corcoran slammed the umps for four bad calls. The men in blue were on the wrong end of a lot of scorn.

On Tuesday, though, this story took a turn for the bizarre. With the same crew working the Mets-Dodgers game, New York reporters had their second crack at Hirschbeck and Foster. Again, Hirschbeck declined to make Foster available to the media. The beleaguered umpire refuses to face the fire. Meanwhile, Hirschbeck has apparently changed his story after speaking with Foster.

According to the 25-year veteran, Foster told him that Jeter was wrong. According to Hirschbeck, Foster said, “The ball beat you, and I had him tagging you.”

To reporters, Hirschbeck defended Foster without reneging on his praise of Jeter. “I don’t see a problem with that,” Hirschbeck said. “Sometimes when tempers flare, you don’t hear everything that’s said.”

Tempers, though, didn’t flare until after Foster allegedly told Jeter that he would be out as long as the ball beat him regardless of the tag. Meanwhile, prior to the game — and prior to Hirschbeck’s discussion with the media — Jim McKean, an MLB umpire supervisor who liaises between MLB and the umpires, spoke with the crew. Do I sense a conspiracy afoot?

Right now, this story is just plan weird. Two members of the Yankees — their widely respected captain and manager — claim the umpire said something outrageous while the crew chief, after having enough time to get his story straight, said the polar opposite. We still haven’t and probably won’t hear from Marty Foster.

The calls for instant replay aside, this is a prime example of a problem with the current system. The umpires have become the story. ESPN has rebroadcast Jeter’s slide hundreds of times by now. The entire nation knows that he was safe. Yet, Marty Foster called him out, and John Hirschbeck seems to be sweeping this story under the rug.

We don’t need a full investigation. We don’t need some Watergate-level special prosecutor to turn up. What we need is for Marty Foster to step forward and tell us the honest-to-God truth. If he really thinks that Scott Rolen placed a tag on Derek Jeter, then so be it. He missed the call, and bad calls are just a part of the game. If he actually said that Jeter was called out regardless of the tag because the throw beat him, he shouldn’t be umping Major League Baseball games.

Either way, this has devolved into a “he said, he said” battle. Right now, I believe Derek. This latest development from Hirschbeck is far too convenient for my tastes.

Added by Joe: Since this is probably the last we’ll hear of this, I figured I’d add this tidbit. Apparently Joe Girardi didn’t get tossed on Monday for arguing the Jeter play at third. Erik Boland says it was because of a call from Sunday. Marty Foster was at home plate on Sunday for the play where Raul Chavez tagged Mark Teixeira with his glove, but the ball was in his other hand. Personally, I find that call more egregious than the one at third.

“Yer blind, ump. Yer blind, ump. You must be out of your mind, ump,” goes part of the refrain from the opening number to the Broadway musical Damn Yankees. Don’t we know it.

On Monday afternoon, in the first inning of the final game of the Yanks-Blue Jays set, Derek Jeter tried to steal third with no outs in the bottom of the first. While we can argue — and have — the baseball smarts behind the decision to steal, Jeter was seemingly safe at third. The throw from Toronto catcher Rod Barajas arrived at the base before Derek did, but the Yanks’ short stop snuck his hand around the incoming tag from Scott Rolen. Replays clearly showed he was safe.

Marty Foster did not agree. He called Jeter out, and the normally placid captain erupted at the explanation. As Jeter said after the game, “I was told I was out because the ball beat me, and he didn’t have to tag me. I was unaware they had changed the rules.”

According to Jeter, Foster, the third base umpire, actually said to him, “He didn’t have to [tag you]. The ball beat you.” Joe Girardi got himself ejected arguing the call and tempered his critique. “I didn’t care for the explanation,” Girardi said. “Just leave it at that. There has to be more to it.”

Of course there has to be more to it than that. It’s the rulebook. A player not forced out has to be tagged out. He isn’t out if the ball gets there first; he’s out if he’s tagged with the glove holding the ball or just the ball before safely reaching the base. That is not what happened today.

After the game, the press wanted to speak with Mr. Foster, but he pulled a cowardly move and didn’t show up. Instead, he asked John Hirschbeck, the crew chief and representative umpire to the press, to talk to the reporters. Hirschbeck was lukewarm in his support of Foster. He called Jeter “the classiest person I’ve been around” and noted that Derek doesn’t argue unless he feels wronged. “It would make his actions seem appropriate if that’s what he was told,” Hirschbeck said of Jeter’s reaction to Foster.

In the end, Hirschbeck said he’d chat with Foster about the call later and weakly called the whole thing a learning experience. “Marty asked me to handle things today,” he said. “We hopefully learn from our experiences. It’s the only way we get better at what we do.”

Hirschbeck and Foster will have their talk, and then Major League Baseball will probably discipline Foster behind closed doors. We’ll never know what happens, and the Yanks won’t get a chance to play out a game they could have won had the right call been made. In an age of instant replay, in an age of DVR, that’s just not an acceptable solution.

Umpires have long been under attack from technology. While traditionalists like to promote the “human error” aspect of a baseball game, the truth is that we root for our team to win fair and square. We don’t want to see the histrionics of the umpires, and we don’t want their perception of a play — the nostalgic idea that the ball arrived first so the player is out — to cloud what really happens when we know that what really happened isn’t what the umpire called.

Baseball has options. They could institute a form of limited replay review. Contrary to what the naysayers naysay, review doesn’t slow down the game any longer than Joe Girardi’s on-field protestations do, and reviews of plays such as the one at third today don’t impact the sacred integrity of the game — which, by the way, is sacred only because the technology didn’t exist when the first ump took the field.

While I see the merits in Beyond the Boxscore’s call to use pitch f/x to call the games, I don’t want to see the human element completely removed from the field of play. There is something to be said for having people and not computerized cameras call the game. Still, what happened on Monday and the subsequent explanations are not acceptable. Foster should have to face the press, and no team should have to put up with the explanation he gave Derek Jeter at third base today.