Baseball Lessons - Something Happened...

Something happened Sunday in a game I umpired that I wasn't quite prepared for. It had nothing to do with baseball and in another way, it had everything to do with baseball. 

You see, on Sundays I have the honor and pleasure of working a very special amateur baseball league that plays its games in an unbelievably beautiful setting on Coronado Island in San Diego, on a gem of a field on a quarter-mile wide sandy strip of land known as The Silver Strand. It’s an age 55 and over senior league, but frankly most players are 60+ and many well into their 70s. The quality of play is no different than any amateur league in that in the end, the team that doesn't beat itself usually comes out ahead - of course!   The guys take the game seriously, but there's also no doubt they're all well aware that the outcome is not as important as the gift of still being able to play baseball from the neck up the way they always have. What time has chiseled away from their athleticism, the heart has recompensed.  Sore limbs and aching muscles are usually no match for the will to hit, field, throw, slide, and yes, even dive for the baseball on occasion. But sometimes, too much is just too much, as it was on Sunday.  While working on a shutout in the 4th inning, after firing a strike, the pitcher took a woozy step off the mound, went down to a knee and collapsed. After the immediate attention from a few players with medical training and the extended efforts of the quick-to-arrive paramedics, about thirty minutes later, the gentleman was pronounced dead right there on the field. A life ended at age 57 on a pristine summer-like March day, under blue sky, the sailboats silently dotting the harbor beyond left field, teammates and opponents silently milling about the field. 

Shortly after the reality of the situation was apparent, players from both teams joined in a circle for the impromptu memorial and it didn't take long for the sentiment to surface that the deceased died doing what he loved, and we should all be so lucky to go that way when our time comes. I suppose medical professionals see these dramas everyday but for me, it was sad, shocking and surreal to see a guy playing baseball one minute and lying lifeless in the next. You often hear stories about how life is precious, which I think we all know on one level, but on another, our awareness is dominated by the more practical matters that compete for our utmost attention. Indeed, it isn't easy to maintain balance and keep everything in perspective. No, we can’t enjoy every moment, but we certainly should try to and, more than that, find the time to follow our passions any way we can. The thing that happened Sunday had nothing to do with baseball, but in some way, it had everything to do with it.

Please say a quick prayer for the pitcher, try to notice the beauty in each day, and if you're ever visiting San Diego, stop by The Strand on Sunday and catch a few innings of some old-school baseball.

What's not wrong with this picture? Mattingly did what?

Oh boy, is this instant replay stuff a ton of fun in the first few days of spring training! Today's adventure involves a would-be inside the park home run and a close play at the plate prompting Angel manager Mike Scioscia to call for replay review.

Take a look at the play HERE.

Quick hit - Beer Goggles 0 for 3 in Instant Replay Debut

MLB history was made as the new instant replay system was put to the test in spring training games in Florida and Arizona. The first day yielded three challenges and I’m here to tell you that in all three cases, the calls on the field survived the video review by the desk-blue inside MLB’s NYC headquarters. As an amateur umpire, I’m not surprised the pros went 3 for 3, but I’m also not about to gloat. Professional umpires are not perfect; they all make mistakes on occasion, but

Here Comes the Future - Stats 3.0. - Baseball's Dark Matter

Dark matter is the stuff in the universe we can't see but, because of its apparent gravitational force on everything we can see, we assume it exists and that it influences everything.  As science advances, the deeper we can peer into the structure of the universe, the more we learn about how it really works. Quick leap - the same is true in baseball. Some people think the game is slow and that's because either they aren't aware of or simply don't appreciate everything that goes on in the spaces in between the action. This is the stuff we can talk

Sabremetrics 101 - No, Really!

I consider myself a student of baseball, but I can't really say I understand all that much about Sabremetrics. Sure, I know that's what the book "Moneyball" was all about and that in the movie version, Jonah Hill's fictional-Yale-educated-sidekick helped support Brad Pitt's real-life-Stanford-educated Billy Beane in his effort to construct a 103-win Oakland A's team in 2002 based on some funky stats...and well, that's what Sabremetrics is, the use of mathematical tools to analyze baseball.

Trick Play Call-to-Arms! Know your balks...

Trick plays in baseball can be a thing of beauty or “bush league,”  beautiful to the perpetrators, bush league to the guys who were fooled. The old hidden-ball-trick is genius in its simplicity and fair enough because there shouldn't be any sympathy for anyone not keeping an eye on the ball, but when the misdirection becomes overly theatrical, its fair to say a line's been crossed.  I've seen some surprisingly well rehearsed gadgets at the high school level here in San Diego, like the fake

"A" is NOT for Abner. The Doubleday Doubletake...

In my last post, I giant slalomed through the gates of rule book logic to debunk the old saying that “the tie goes to the runner.”  Although we know the rule book is a living breathing thing which keeps evolving, like with last year's change outlawing the old third-to-first spaghetti move, when you look at the proverbial forest through the trees, the rules make sense most of the time - much of which goes back to the original Kickerbocker Rules of the mid-nineteenth century.  As we salivate in anticipation of spring training games so we can again focus on the action, I thought it would be a good time to take a look back and tell you about another surprising myth about baseball.

“Tie Goes to the Runner” Myth - Like Santa, it does and doesn't exist!

Who hasn’t heard someone yell “tie goes to the runner” after a close play at first? Of course that plea is just another example of a fan grasping at the nearest cliché to rationalize a favorable outcome for his or her team, the offense. It’s a complex discussion to talk about all the factors that influence the call when it’s so close to the naked eye it can go either way, but what of baseball’s rule book? Since I’m in a debunking mood, let’s see what the rules say about TGTTR.

Before I start dissecting words, we need to remind ourselves of some of baseball’s inalienable truths. 

MLB approves pitcher headgear - Duh! Now let's strip hitters...

Give me all your fearless X-gamers, base jumpers and assorted adrenaline junkies inventing new ways to get hurt and there is still no more dangerous and nerve-wracking job than pitching a baseball with the suppressed reality that in an unexpected instant, you might not be able to prevent a liner from hitting your skull at 100+ mph.  

It’s amazing Tampa Bay pitcher Alex Cobb came back last year to go 5-1 down the stretch after being hit in the head by a line drive in a June 15^th game versus the Royals.  He "only" suffered a

MLB Replay - Part III - How will it work?

In my first two blog entries on the subject of MLB's expanded use of instant replay (IR) beginning this season, I argued that while IR might be the greater good, it comes at the expense of some of baseball's unwritten rules and traditions.  Hardcore baseball fans can debate this all day long like they might the Pete Rose hall of fame issue; traditionalists don’t want to tinker with the game while techno-geeks won’t be happy until balls and strikes are called by nuclear powered hover-bots.  As the debate rolls on, lets look at the specifics of how IR will be implemented as it has some interesting components...

MLB Replay - Part II - It won't disturb the game as we know it...

Two comments in last week's announcement by MLB, about the implementation of expanded replay beginning this year, caught my attention.  The first, by MLB reporter Paul Hagan:

“The way baseball games are governed on the field changed dramatically Thursday.”

The very next statement by the commish, Bud Selig went like this:

“I’m proud of the changes we’ve made…because they won’t disturb the game as we know it.”

Hmm, pondering both of these statements made me think of that line in the Dire Straits song “Industrial Disease”, “two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong…” On the surface the first is about officiating, the second about the game itself, but you really can’t change one without affecting the other.  I touched upon the cost of this change as it might affect umpiring in my last blog entry and now I want to consider Selig’s statement.  “…won’t disturb the game as we know it.” 

MLB Replay - Part I - A dramatic change to the way the game is officiated. Indeed!

MLB announced on Thursday that beginning with the 2014 season, they’re expanding the use of instant replay (IR) to include safe/out, catch/no catch and most other action around the diamond. There are too many tentacles to this story to address in one blog entry so I will start with the first statement in yesterday’s announcement on mlb.com, made by reporter Paul Hagan:

 “The way baseball games are governed on the field changed dramatically Thursday…”

Look, ask any umpire, professional or amateur, and they will tell you all they want is to get the call right. IR is a tool that will help do that so what's the big deal? The NFL’s use of IR has been a great success by any measure, but in baseball, the word “judgment” as in “umpire judgment” carries a deeper meaning. There are calls all over the diamond where the umpires use their discretion, based on the nature of the action, to dish out baseball justice that stays close to the inherent spirit or soul of the game. Let me give you an example. In last fall ’s MLB playoffs,