Certainly the biggest call of the night came in the Rays/Rangers game, where umpire Marty Foster ruled out a call that struck out Ben Zobrist. He was like all the fans and he couldn’t believe the call, especially when the game ended. Going through all the tweets from baseball writers, there was one who didn’t think it was all that bad. Colin Wyers (@cwyers) of Baseball Prospectus discussed the call with others. These are some of his tweets:
“Your friendly reminder that the strike zone is defined by where the ball crosses home plate, not where it is when it hits the catcher’s mitt.”
“Oh right, NOW everyone breaks the Pitch F/X diagrams with no calibration adjustments.”
“@ChadMoriyama The people calling it the worst ever or a shooting offense are reacting to where the ball was LONG after it crossed the plane.”
“@joe_sheehan There are worse calls in every game, people are overreacting to this one based on where the glove hit.”
Now it got me thinking about how Pitch F/X isn’t 100% accurate and how every time we see a ball bounce off the dirt, we’re going to wonder if it was a strike. So I think Wyers makes a good point about how we tend to overreact when we’re the one watching the replay over and over and the referee has a moment to make the right call.
But no matter what, the referee was wrong in the call and it was not a call that could have gone either way. It was a ball and the Rays have a reason to be upset in such a close game. At times like this, many will wonder what is the point of having a referee when we have technology like Pitch F/X, but I would argue against this even though I’m not over 30 so you can’t call me old fashioned. school, since any story I can think of includes Ben Sheets and Geoff Jenkins. (Not too classic, huh) Anyway, here are some of my reasons:
1. As mentioned, Pitch F/X is not 100% and we are going to have discussions no matter what in situations like this. If we find something 150% (yes, that’s not possible) accurate, then it can be argued.
2.Entertainment. Of course, you would argue against this if it’s your home team, but getting up in the morning and going to the office to talk about a situation like this can surely pass the time.
3. Even if we find something completely accurate, we will start discussing all phases of the game. Repetitions of fair or foul, safe or out, etc. I would be afraid it would turn into an NFL game where we would be waiting for a call and the games would no doubt last 3+ hours.
So, I know I went beyond the small call last night, but like all baseball fans today, I enjoyed arguing.
