NWR: Jim Joyce

This argument about sticking with what the umpire called reminds me of an article I read some years ago about the situation of convicted prisoners who are subsequently proven innocent -- by DNA or other subsequently-discovered evidence. In Italy there is (or at least was) no provision for reversing the conviction and so these unfortunates had to remain in prison.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
What you want is for a game in which a runner reached base to be declared a perfect game based on ontology and justice rather than baseball.
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I have to take issue with this in at least two ways. First, you are assuming what you set out to prove, because the proposition that "a runner reached base" is precisely what is in dispute. It is within the power of the commissioner to rule that a runner did not reach base. The question is whether he should or should not exercise his discretion to make that ruling, but I don't believe anyone has claimed that he lacks the authority to do so. That is what I understand the situation to be. If people are asking for the commissioner to retain the call of a Hit but award the PG anyway just to make everyone feel good, then I am on your side and would oppose it.

Second, the definition of a perfect game has nothing to do with the rules of how baseball is played, but with the rules of how baseball statistics are kept. Official statistics are invented and modified all the time, with retroactive effect. According to Wikipedia, the current definition of a perfect game was formalized in 1991. But a perfect game thrown in 1990 would still be an official perfect game. (And this would be the case even if, for whatever reason, the 1990 game didn't qualify under the then-prevailing definition of a perfect game, but did qualify under the 1991 amendment.) Thus, whatever principle necessary to render this game a perfect game retroactively has already been established, whether you want to call it ontological or not.
 
Who or what is perfect in a perfect game? The pitcher, that's all. The hitters certainly aren't perfect. The fielders may or many not need to be. Does the umpiring crew need to be? Apparently, they do - although I don't think they are credited with any sort of record.
 
what if the reverse happened? called out at first when he was clearly safe? should the commissioner step in and erase the perfect game from the record books?
 
While I appreciate other's opinions here and believe that everybody should get their say, I do hope we can all take something good away from this event - the guys involved certainly deserve a tip of the hat - regardless of rules or politics.
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
While I appreciate other's opinions here and believe that everybody should get their say, I do hope we can all take something good away from this event - the guys involved certainly deserve a tip of the hat - regardless of rules or politics.
Best, Jim
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The humanity is what shined through the most in this event for sure and will stick with us forever. Now it's up to Bud Selig, to make sure we don't argue forever, and get new rules in place. I for one think a manager should get one challenge a game like in football. They would never use it the early innings and would be perfect in a situation like this. Plus IR for safe/out close calls, maybe interference on the base paths, but never for strike/ball stuff.
 
No need to have challenges, just have the calls made in the first instance by a guy off the field who can do zoom-in and slow-mo, and have Questec call balls and strikes.
 
I guess there are situations you'd need a man on the field for, but, really, if you were designing the game today, would you put in four umps or would you just use a guy at a computer?
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
I guess there are situations you'd need a man on the field for, but, really, if you were designing the game today, would you put in four umps or would you just use a guy at a computer?
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Ugh!

Do you want wine made by some guy who decides when to harvest, camps out in the cellar during fermentation, and then tastes the wine during elevage, or some guy at a computer?
 
personally, I'm against imposing the technology of today on the game of baseball (except for HD television!) - it's the human aspect, including the errors, that makes the game great!
 
Selig can of course rule as he wishes. To the extent that anything I said suggested otherwise, I hereby withdraw it. What he can't do is make the baserunner disappear. My argument did not assume what was in question since it did not assume the baserunner ought to have been there (whatever "ought to" might mean), only that, for better or worse, he was. For this reason, even if Selig, because most fans who write into the NY Times seem to agree with Keith, reversing himself, reverses the call, the game will still be remembered and recounted as it is, a perfectly pitched game made imperfect by a bad call.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
I guess there are situations you'd need a man on the field for, but, really, if you were designing the game today, would you put in four umps or would you just use a guy at a computer?
Click to expand...

Ugh!

Do you want wine made by some guy who decides when to harvest, camps out in the cellar during fermentation, and then tastes the wine during elevage, or some guy at a computer?
Click to expand...
Totally different. In umpiring there is always a right answer and a wrong answer; the problem is just determining how to get the right answer as often as possible with the least disruption to the game. There's no question that a guy who has access to replays and zoom-ins and slow-mo is going to be right more often, the question is just how to do it so the call gets made as quickly as it has to get made. But I think the technology is there to do it.

I was at the Mets game today and noticing the board that tells you the pitch - "88 MPH SLIDER," "89 MPH FASTBALL," etc. The speed comes automatically from the gun but I imagine that to name the pitch, you have to actually have a guy sitting there watching on TV and saying what it is. Still, the reading appears on the board pretty immediately after the pitch is thrown. It shouldn't be too difficult to have umpiring calls done the same way.

Here's a Post columnist who's gotten most of the way to where I am...

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www.nypost.com
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
What he can't do is make the baserunner disappear. My argument did not assume what was in question since it did not assume the baserunner ought to have been there (whatever "ought to" might mean), only that, for better or worse, he was.
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I'm confused here. The baserunner's physical presence is irrelevant. A safe baserunner and an out baserunner both run across the base exactly the same way. The question isn't whether the baserunner is there but what we are going to call him - a safe baserunner or an out baserunner. Nobody needs to make him disappear (or alter reality in any other way) to call him an out baserunner.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

I was at the Mets game today and noticing the board that tells you the pitch - "88 MPH SLIDER," "89 MPH FASTBALL," etc. The speed comes automatically from the gun but I imagine that to name the pitch, you have to actually have a guy sitting there watching on TV and saying what it is. Still, the reading appears on the board pretty immediately after the pitch is thrown. It shouldn't be too difficult to have umpiring calls done the same way.
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Actually, even that appears to be automated these days.

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www.slate.com
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

I was at the Mets game today and noticing the board that tells you the pitch - "88 MPH SLIDER," "89 MPH FASTBALL," etc. The speed comes automatically from the gun but I imagine that to name the pitch, you have to actually have a guy sitting there watching on TV and saying what it is. Still, the reading appears on the board pretty immediately after the pitch is thrown. It shouldn't be too difficult to have umpiring calls done the same way.
Click to expand...

Actually, even that appears to be automated these days.

Loading…

www.slate.com
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
What he can't do is make the baserunner disappear. My argument did not assume what was in question since it did not assume the baserunner ought to have been there (whatever "ought to" might mean), only that, for better or worse, he was.
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I'm confused here. The baserunner's physical presence is irrelevant. A safe baserunner and an out baserunner both run across the base exactly the same way. The question isn't whether the baserunner is there but what we are going to call him - a safe baserunner or an out baserunner. Nobody needs to make him disappear (or alter reality in any other way) to call him an out baserunner.
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Your not confused, you are just finding new ways to say the same thing. He was a safe baserunner at the moment he was called safe because the rules of baseball are that what an umpire calls is what has happened.

Selig has the power to overrule an umpire call and change the ruling, but he doesn't have the power to make it not have occurred. He can make the runner now be out. He can't make him have been out at the moment. He can declare the game perfect, but he can't make it have been perfect, then.

But this question is exhausted. Let me ask one in return. As I've said, numbers of times, the game is what it was. Why do you care what Selig rules? You can rule yourself that it was perfect. Selig can change the record books, but he and you have exactly the same power to decide how to refer to reality. Call it perfect, encourage others to do so. If it was, it is. If it wasn't, it still won't be.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
He was a safe baserunner at the moment he was called safe because the rules of baseball are that what an umpire calls is what has happened.

Selig has the power to overrule an umpire call and change the ruling, but he doesn't have the power to make it not have occurred. He can make the runner now be out. He can't make him have been out at the moment.
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But that's actually not true. The commissioner does indeed have the authority to rule retroactively and declare that the baserunner was out as of the moment the ball was caught.

As for why I care what Selig does, I simply believe that record books should reflect what everyone understands reality to be to the greatest extent possible. Suppose it were determined that the holder of, say, the world record for women's weightlifting was actually a man. Wouldn't you want that removed from the record books? The whole point of keeping the record book is to keep track of which women lifted the most weights, and to facilitate comparative discussions of female weightlifters over time. Neither interest is served by retaining a phony "record" which never belonged in the first place. Or would you argue that the man was actually a woman as of the moment he recorded the record because that's what the weightlifting referee (or judge or whatever one calls them) presumed at the time?
 
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