{"id":6442,"date":"2010-04-21T20:12:31","date_gmt":"2010-04-22T03:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=6442"},"modified":"2017-06-10T11:12:11","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T18:12:11","slug":"the-peterson-principle-42110","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=6442","title":{"rendered":"The Peterson Principle 4\/21\/10"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

The Umpires aren't always wrong<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tim Peterson<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to go against the grain. I\u2019m going to buck tradition, try to swim upstream. I\u2019m going to cheer when everybody else is booing. I\u2019m going to defend the umpires. That\u2019s right I\u2019m standing up for the boys in blue. Even when they\u2019re right they hear it. They aren\u2019t wrong every time and it\u2019s time the coaches and the fans, (especially the fans), learn that.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve covered at least eight baseball games in the last two weeks and not once have I seen bad umpiring. Oh sure there was a close call now and then, one that could have gone either way, but the umps made the calls and stood by them. There\u2019s no instant replay so in a split second you go with what you saw and it looked to me like they were right on. But not according to the 30 or 40 wannabe umpires in the stands. They were met with cries of \u201cIdiot!\u201d and \u201cterrible!\u201d and other names that I can\u2019t repeat.<\/p>\n

The home plate umpires have it the worst. Every ball or strike call is met with moans and groans by some guy in the stands who apparently wrote the book on pitch location. I\u2019m sick of seeing fathers trying to relive their childhood through their sons and can\u2019t accept the fact that little Johnny just struck out.<\/p>\n

I saw one kid take three fastballs right down the middle of the plate only to have some middle aged guy behind the backstop (apparently his dad) absolutely rip the umpire for ringing the kid up. He yelled and screamed and berated the ump while telling him to learn the game. Hey here\u2019s a thought \u2013 tell your kid to swing the bat.<\/p>\n

At one game the first base umpire called a balk. After consulting with the third base ump, the call was reversed and the runner was told to go back to second. I\u2019m thinking \u2018wow, nice job\u2019. They talked it over and determined that the original call was incorrect. They made sure and then got it right. But the guy sitting next to me in a lawn chair went berserk.<\/p>\n

\u201cC\u2019mon blue! You can\u2019t reverse a balk call! Read your rulebook! You can\u2019t reverse a balk call!\u201d How he knew this I have no idea. He didn\u2019t have a rule book there of his own yet he was convinced he was right. He finished off his tirade with \u201cMoron!\u201d<\/p>\n

Now is it just balks that can\u2019t be reversed or other calls as well? What about check swings? Interference calls? Can they be reversed? Well the bottom line was apparently they can be because the umpires just did.<\/p>\n

I never get involved with these belligerent knuckleheads but I came close last week. From the first pitch in the first inning to the last toss in the seventh a certain fan was on the umpire.<\/p>\n

I confirmed later he was a father of one of the players which I suspected as soon as I heard him. High and outside pitches that were correctly called balls by the umpire brought derisive, loud criticisms from the clueless fan. Strikes from the opposing team were also met with cries from the loud mouth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At one time or another he called the umpire a drunk, a racist, biased, blind and stupid. And that was just in the first inning. Of course he was deathly silent when his son committed an error or struck out which happened a number of times.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

The funny thing was the umpire called a near perfect game. He was consistent on both sides, and didn\u2019t seem to miss a thing.<\/p>\n

At one point, the father even denigrated other players from his son\u2019s team. \u201cLet\u2019s go son, you\u2019ll have to do it yourself. You don\u2019t have any defense around you!\u201d he bellowed as several other parents turned and stared at him.<\/p>\n

The umpires aren\u2019t always wrong and most of the time they\u2019re right. Who is the real idiot? The fan from last week finally found out\u2026when he went home and looked in the mirror.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my principle.<\/p>\n

Tim can be reached at tspeterson@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson I\u2019m going to go against the grain. I\u2019m going to buck tradition, try to swim upstream. I\u2019m going to cheer when everybody else is booing. I\u2019m going to defend the umpires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12817],"tags":[2737,2735,2736,2738,2739,2734],"class_list":["post-6442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fanview","category-petersonprince","tag-balk","tag-blue","tag-fans","tag-fastballs","tag-high-school-baseball","tag-umpires"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6442"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59563,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442\/revisions\/59563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}