by Erich Heinlein

Created on: April 14, 2010   Last Updated: April 16, 2010

Does a school need teachers and Principals to enforce discipline? While discipline-enforcer shouldn't have to be the umpire's primary role, of course we need umpires in baseball. Without umpires there would be no objective person to make close calls. It is not a good idea to leave close calls and balls and strikes up to the players.

There would be never ending disputes and the number of brawls would go up significantly. We can't really use journalists to umpire games because they need to have time to interview players and everything else. They don't really have time to umpire a game. Without umpires there is no objective person on the field to make calls and it would increase the number of fights which occur during a game.

There would be nobody to warn a pitcher if he is throwing at the hitter intentionally. Teams are going to have non-objective opinions of that because they are just that-teams, with players who are paid hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to win games. For coaches, winning games is the determining factor in whether or not they get to keep their job year in and year out.

The other problem with eliminating umpires from games is that means the Major Leagues would have to spend thousands of dollars training somebody else to umpire games and determine the calls. It is a horrendous idea to leave the calls to the players themselves. They would obviously want to favor themselves every time, especially at the higher levels of play.

What Major League baseball and college baseball needs to do is expand and implement the replay rule to help determine whether or not a call was accurate. After all, a right or wrong call can be the determining factor in a game and could change the life of one or both teams forever. It could also cost them or unjustly make them a lot of money with a wrong call. Just one lost game or one wrong call over the course of a season could determine whether or not a team makes the playoffs, wins their division or gets home field advantage. As far as the significance of the playoffs goes, well that needs no explanation.

The reality is, umpires are put through special training to make the right calls where players and managers are not. This makes them much more qualified to make good calls throughout the course of the game, much more so than the players and the coaches themselves. They know what to look out for when making a close call or how to determine it. Players and coaches may or may not have that ability.

So let's leave it up to the umpires. No, arguing won't help change their calls and yes, there is crying in baseball.

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