Let them walk

Sporting News, The, July 26, 1999 by Dave Kindred

For the price of a moderately talented infielder, major league baseball can rid itself of a problem that has resisted solution. For $15 million in severance pay, the lords of baseball can accept the resignations of the game's 68 umpires. Talk about a no-brainer. As baseball wondered how it ever could shove these malcontents off a cliff's edge, the umpires suddenly took off sprinting (or waddling) and threw themselves into the abyss. How neat, how sweet.

If ever these umpires wanted us to believe they had any common sense, they've now lost the chance. They've promised/threatened to resign from jobs only slightly less secure than U.S. Supreme Court appointments. They'll quit work that pays as much as $250,000 a year. They'll walk away from baseball. What fools these mortals be.

Our national heritage of rebellion against authority only begins to explain the animosity created by today's umpires. By their works and words, they have come to be seen as arrogant, argumentative and overfed. Such is their standing that one suspects they enter this latest labor dispute loved only by their dogs, next of kin and creditors.

One might laugh out loud except that one's mother taught him never to laugh at the unfortunate, of which the warmongering Richie Phillips is an arresting example. The umpires' union boss has said, "The tension is much greater than it has ever been. Baseball is in a state of chaos."

No, no, no. Baseball is in a state of pleasure greater than any since the calamitous labor dispute of 1994, as demonstrated by the memorable All-Star night at Fenway Park when past, present and future stars came together to celebrate a century of the greatest game ever invented.

If today's umpires don't want to be part of this game, fine. Let them walk. Let them create their own strike zones at a company picnic. Who, after all, goes to a ballpark to see umpires snarling at snarling players?

It doesn't happen in other games. An NFL referee walks away from any fuming behemoth. "We want our officials to be professional in their conduct," says Jerry Seeman, the NFEs senior director of officiating. "We want them to work games on what we call `cruise control.' We respect the players and coaches, and we expect them to respect us. They know we will not tolerate verbal and physical abuse."

Seeman says an NFL official is taught that if he hears a player's profanity, the proper reply is, "What did you say?" If the player repeats the language, it's 15 yards the other way.

Much the same happens in the NBA. You've seen it. A referee cradles the ball in the crook of his arm and looks up at a whining millionaire as if to say, "Oh, poor baby." The NBA official's neutral response to players' anger is no accident.

Rod Thom, the NBA's director of basketball operations: "Our guidelines are to avoid confrontations. Turn and walk away. If a player persists, it's a technical foul."

For reasons that make no sense, baseball long has tolerated confrontation of umpires and players. And though there's no case to be made for provocative umpires, it should be pointed out that NBA and NFL referees have an advantage in dealing with players. In fact, if baseball could adopt just one ride from basketball or football, we'd see an end to the idiotic behavior that has created baseball's foul atmosphere.

Umpires have no means of control short of ejection. Football and basketball chill debate by giving officials the power to inflict punishment a little at a time. Unsportsmanlike conduct costs a football player 15 yards. Basketball's technical foul awards free throws and possession of the ball.

What if an umpire could award bases? "Everybody move up a base until John McGraw Jr here finishes his discussion of the rule book. "What if he also could adjust the ball-and-strike count? "Hey, Skipper, it used to be three-and-one on your hitter. But now it's two-and-one, and if we continue to debate the call at second it's going to be one-and-one with every runner backing up a base."

Just thinking out loud about a solution too extreme to be practical. It's brought up not out of sympathy for umpires, but as a reminder that baseball's roles have helped create the century of animosity that lately has boiled over into one more Threat to End All Baseball.

This threat comes, amazingly, because umpires actually seem to think they're indispensable. One veteran umpire, Dale Ford, has said if the umpires are allowed to resign, the game will "dissolve."

Whoa there. When President Reagan replaced striking air traffic controllers with administrators and trainees, airplanes didn't fall out of the sky. But umpires want us to believe a kids' game will collapse without them?

Marvin Miller, the former players association executive director, had it right when he said major league players are the least replaceable workers he'd ever seen. It's just as tree that umpires, even the very best of them, are eminently replaceable. And at $15 million to end forever the bitter wrangling with umpires, baseball's owners likely will think it's a bargain at twice the price.