What Happened to Calling Balls and Strikes OR why has a tag play suddenly gotten harder to call?

Unwatchable.

Alan Porter behind the plate is unwatchable.
The home plate umpire in the Los Angeles Dodgers' opening day game for 2014 had no idea what a strike was. Judged based on his body language, if you asked him about his "strike zone" you may as well have been speaking a foreign language because his facial countenance would have reflected total disbelief. As if someone slipped something in his morning coffee and he just couldn't assimilate what the hell was happening.

It is amazing how extremely boring the game of baseball can be when umpires act as if something else besides the game is going on. When the home plate umpire is wearing sunglasses, as was Porter, even though the rules do not permit such "equipment" for the arbiter of balls and strikes it's understandable why they can use their own interpretation of the rulebook strike zone.

Hey, this rule says this and that rule says this but I'm the umpire and I can interpret each and every rule any way I see fit. Which in layman's terms means however they can make it work best for them they will most assuredly interpret the rule in that fashion.

All this moaning and groaning about speeding up the game. How about the umpires just follow the rules they were hired to adhere to? If you call a strike a strike and not leave it to your imbecilic interpretation perhaps the batters will swing and pitchers will throw in more of a rhythm than when they have to rub their eyes or ask where the pitch missed.

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Michael Morse's defensive approach to Adrian Gonzalez' homer was an optical illusion. He (Morse) played that homer like he was 5'6" when the last I looked he stands 6 feet tall and 5 inches. The Giants had to know he was defensively challenged? How could they not know he was so inept?

Earlier in the season some "expert" came on a show on the A's flagship station and said Morse was the worst fielder he ever saw. It was like listening to Bobby Slayton, the comedian, rip into some overpaid ballplayer who didn't know which hand to put his glove on. I mean the guy's statement was a bull's eye. Unfortunately, I cannot remember his name. But his ball busting was point blank bingo.

The 2014 Los Angeles Dodger season opener was simply unwatchable. Alan Porter somehow making it to the big leagues as an umpire and Michael Morse in the big leagues as a left fielder.

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The missed tag play by Eric Cooper in Arizona vs. Giants is unacceptable.

Kevin J. Marquez