T'row Da Bums OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With all the talk of steroids, in baseball, I have a question, "Why is there so much slack given to major league umpires?"

A home plate umpire can toss the rulebook aside and make the strike zone his own personal judgment call. This is the umpire in every game who determines the outcome in most games and you better believe these ESPN-watching ego maniacal folks love it!!!!!!!!

If a ball looks like it's trapped, in some umpires' mind it is not their job to let the runner know if the ball was caught or not. That's something the players need to determine themselves. But who ultimately makes the call? It's like an unwritten umpire rule that allows the ump to "steal" outs. (i.e., sometimes on trap plays you have a chance of getting 3 outs on one play. Umpires drool at the thought of that happening. Take my word for it, I am an umpire, although I'm not one of the umps looking for reasons to make an out call for the sake of getting the game over.)

As a Giants' fan I am always wondering why, Hall of Fame announcer, Jon Miller, will describe the home plate umpire's strike zone as an aberration and then in the recap during the Postgame Wrap he doesn't say word one about the overall inconsistencies of that guy calling balls and strikes. I mean, the late Bill King would paint the word picture that would make anyone think that the man in blue calling balls and strikes was a clown. I want, just once, for Hall of Fame Miller (unlike Bill King, Holy Injustice!) to utter something like: 'Wow. As the game has gone on the home plate umpire has suddenly gotten way bigger shoes, a red nose and a bad wig...'
'Needless to say, his painted white face-not hard to notice-gives the impression that the umpire calling balls and strikes is, well, a clown.'

And yet, if you say anything about the umpires' performance it is you who gets fined. What happens to the Bozo lookalike whose job is to call rulebook strikes and balls but instead makes an aberration of the strike zone?

Personally, I feel, the umpire is the ambassador of the rules in the baseball rulebook. When they stray from the rules, and they often do, there is no integrity to those particular games.

Kevin Marquez