Given that we spent almost all of last postseason watching umpires make bad calls that any civilized human being could have gotten right the league decided it was time to make some changes. They chose not to retain 3 previous supervisors and Randy Marsh and Charlie Reliford have retired from the field to take the helm in Umpire Supervision.
I have to say that even though they took guys from the field who may have been a part of some bad calls at least they are trying. Remember when David Stern hired some Drill Sergeant or something like that to supervise officials in the NBA–like that would make a difference? It was as if he thought that WE thought the refs were going to boot camp. It was a stupid move that only made NBA officiating worse.
Here, I don’t know if officiating in the MLB will get better or not, but at least they tried. As many stupid things as Bud Selig has done since he became Commissioner AT LEAST he didn’t try to trick us when changing up the guard with the umpires. This could turn out well because it only takes one guy at the top who commands the respect of their peers to get guys all on the same page.
It shouldn’t take much if either Marsh or Reliford know all the Umpires well enough to get them to do things in a UNIFORM and smart manner. I think that might be the key.
We can all agree that every Umpire calls their own game and they all do it their own way. Sure, Baseball has rules, but alot of those rules are VERY subjective. Sometimes it even feels like watching Figure Skating. If Marsh and Reliford can take the “dastardly French judge” out of the equation then we should have a much better season…and postseason…in 2010.
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