The Fan's Corner

with Greg Duff: 08/16/01

Umpires should enforce strike zone

Those of us who love the game are in the minority. The majority is comprised of folks who truly detest the game or are just bored to death by it. Baseball is an American game because it reflects our nationwide ambivalence toward rules. Like everything else, most Americans respect the big things in life and rules are no exception. Most of us don't steal and all but a few don't kill. Those are the big ones. God felt so strongly against them he put them in his top 10 Thou Shall Not list. It's the little ones we have trouble with.

Just think about the things you see (and maybe do) everyday while driving.

- Like Sammy Hagar, I can't drive 55 and neither do most people.

- The law says we should use our turn signal to indicate our intention to change lanes. How many times do you see that done? - Littering is a crime, but our highways look like most us can't find a trash can.

It's not like it is our entire fault, though. Americans get their inspiration from the top down and look at what we have had at the top the last few years. Our last president must have thought the Eighth Commandment was a typo. Our current one had no problem swearing to uphold the Constitution all the while knowing he had the opportunity to take that oath because he looked the other way when it came to the right to vote.

What has this got to do with baseball, you might be asking? Plenty, because baseball is a game of rules. Some are followed to the letter like the way a game is started, the number of outs, or what constitutes a home run. Others like the one that stipulates a coach must stay in the coach's box or the one that says a fielder's foot must actually touch second base to turn a double play are, shall I say, liberally interpreted.

But, the rule that seems most open to interpretation is the strike zone. We all heard that Major League Baseball was going to enforce the strike zone this year. They called all the umpires in a couple of weeks early to explain it to them and let them practice a little before turning them loose on the players.

It worked for a few weeks. Tom Glavine's ERA skyrocketed because those pitches six inches off the plate that had been called strikes were now being called balls. But because we Americans are also creatures of habit, the umpires slowly regressed to the strike zones they had been using their entire careers.

I can't figure out what is so hard about this. The rules of Major League Baseball define the strike zone as "that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants and the lower level is a line a the hollow beneath the knee cap." OK, that is a little confusing, but essentially what they are saying is anything over the plate between the name on the front of the jersey and the knees is a strike.

Last November, Jim Armstrong wrote a great piece about the confusion over the strike zone for Baseball Digest. In it, he cited a couple of reasons the strike zone is so liberally interpreted:

- The change in the strike zone came about in the 1970s with the advent of the different types of chest protectors worn by umpires in each league; the National League umps wore their's inside the shirts so they could squat lower than their American League counterparts who wore the outside protector. As a result, the American League umpires stood a little higher and were more inclined to call the high strike.

- Chicago Cubs catcher Joe Girardi claims the amount of equipment worn by batters impacts the umpires' call in two ways: The bulky equipment can interfere with the umpires' vantage point and because of the equipment the players are more inclined to crowd the plate and pinch the strike zone because they are less afraid of being hit.

Former umpire Bob Davidson claims the strike zone is the most misunderstood part of the game. "It's hard to define because, as any umpire will tell you, it's by memory. You remember, 'OK, I called a strike on that pitch before and got away with it. I'll call it again.' "

That would be OK if the rules said the strike zone was up to the individual umpire. Players wouldn't argue as long as they knew what each umpire was going to call and he was consistent. My problem is the strike zone is defined and should be called as such. I don't care if an umpire consistently calls a pitch three inches off the plate a strike, he shouldn't call it there at all. As far as I'm concerned the strike zone is a rule that should be respected. For baseball fans it is a big one.

Back to Sports: 08/16/01.