An Umpire's Journal: Missing a Call

For those of you who are baseball fans, you will remember the now infamous missed called at first base by umpire Jim Joyce (see photo at right). He called a runner safe when he was out and that would have been the last out of the game AND it would have been a perfect game for the pitcher. Joyce commented after the game that he had "kicked the sh-- out of the call," meaning that he had totally blown it.

       Well I blew a call last night at a game. I called a balk on a left-handed pitcher when I should not have done so. The coaches jumped all over me and I defended my call to them when they came up to me to discuss it at the end of the game.

       Then I came home and asked Steven about the play, and I looked online about balk calls on lefties. I blew it - I was wrong!

       During training umpires learn that "the umpire is always right." As an umpire you don't admit that you made a bad call, at least not during the game. The problem with this philosophy is that umpires are NOT always right! We're human, we miss calls sometimes. It's part of the game.

       Tomorrow is another day, and another game. There will be a whole bunch of calls to make in that game. Time to move on from today's game.