PRESSURE’S ON UMPS, TOO
Staying out of spotlight, getting calls right key forWorld Series crew
How about a little love for the other guys on the field?
The Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians played Game 6 of the World Series on Tuesday. Unlike the players, the six umpires spread out around Progressive Field were not seeking glory. Like the players, they represent the best in the world at their profession, and they are called upon to perform under unspeakable pressure in the World Series. But the best any umpire can hope to achieve is for no one to notice him at all.
“If you’re worried about the pressure, you’ve got the wrong job,” Major League Baseball umpiring director and former ump Randy Marsh said. “To me, the pressure’s the same as it is opening day — I want to get every pitch right. It’s not any different when you’re working the World Series.”
With the proliferation of high- definition video review and PITCHf/ x- type strike zone readouts, some argue MLB umpires have gotten worse in recent years. But the umpires working the Series represent the best of the best.
“These guys are evaluated every game they work all season long,” Marsh said. “Their strike zone is evaluated, all the plays they call on the field, how they handle situations — arguments and things like that, how they handle that. They get midyear evaluations; they get year- end evaluations. In September, we bring our supervisors in andmeet with ( MLB chief baseball officer) Joe Torre and ( vice president of baseball operations) Peter Woodfork, and we go over the entire staff, all 76 names.
“We have video review on all the calls they make, and we have the computer systems as far as plate work is concerned. The day after they work the plate, they get a readout on every pitch that they actually called. It’ll tell them if they called a pitch 21⁄ inches outside, or it’ll tell them if this pitch was inside the zone and they called it a ball.”
In September, the league selects four crews’ worth of umpires to work the divisional series round. Two separate crews umpire the league championship series. The seven umps who rotate through the six postseason umpiring positions during World Series play all worked division series games but not league championship series contests, an effort made to find a balance between rust and fatigue.
This postseason, a moment caught on camera between Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo and home- plate umpire Angel Hernandez blew up online. Rizzo had assumed a pitch was ball four and began walking toward first when Hernandez called him back, and the slugger later apologized for inadvertently showing up Hernandez.
After the game, Rizzo pointed out something that rarely registers with fans: Umpiring a full baseball season is an extra
ordinarily taxing job.
“All of the umpires are out here at the highest level, doing their best,” he said. “They’re out here working their tails off for 162 ( games) like we are. There’s no home for them. They’re on the road the entire season.”
While MLB players get to play half of their games in one location, umpires travel constantly. Across the course of the six- month regular season, they get four one- week breaks. And while Marsh said many umpires make their homes someplace near a big- league city, they’re unlikely to be there formore than a couple of series a season. Marsh is from a Cincinnati suburb in northern Kentucky and could recall a season in which he worked only three Reds home games.
Naturally, umpiring has changed a lot in the last couple of seasons thanks to the dawn of the league’s replay review system. Marsh said umps were resistant at first. But replay, the umps found, saves them from the burden of botching a decisive call in a big game.
“They realized it’s for the betterment of the game,” Marsh said. “Also, if you’re an umpire and they’ve changed your call, nine times out of 10 it’s not even written about in the paper. There’s a call at first base that was overturned; the umpire’s not out there hanging on a limb and getting ripped apart. Also, because they were able to do that, it didn’t affect the outcome of the game— that’s the important thing.”
Umpires in 2016 face perhaps more scrutiny than ever, especially when behind the plate. Fans and analysts armed with strike- zone plots can identify immediately if an umpire called a strike an inch below the zone or squeezed a pitcher on a fastball that nipped the outside corner. And pitchers throw harder than ever.
Marsh said umpires provide a support system for one another, and he noted that many dedicated baseball fans appreciate the difficulty of officiating a game. But when asked if he thought that most people recognize how hard it is to be an umpire, he was unequivocal.
“Guys come to umpire school, and they think anybody can get behind the plate,” he said. “The first time they get behind there at umpire school and the balls coming in at 50mph, they’re diving out of the way. They have no idea.”