Smizik: Weather shouldn't have stopped game
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Baseball umpires are expected to have some of the most sharply honed decision-making skills in all of sports. In a fraction of a second, they must make decisions on safe or out, fair or foul, ball or strike.
This is a skill in which they take great pride, a pride that often comes off as arrogance.
There?s no room for arrogance today. All they can do is hang their heads in shame. They blew it.
Asked to make the simplest of decisions last night at PNC Park, they failed miserably. In doing so they inconvenienced about 25,000 ticket buyers and dealt a unfair financial blow to the Pirates.
The umpiring crew headed by Jerry Crawford, a 26-year veteran, was asked to make a decision that a school-age child could have handled, and they blew it.
They had more than two hours to make this decision and they still couldn?t get it right.
Was it raining or wasn?t it?
The umpired said it was.
It wasn?t.
At least not by the standards generally accepted by baseball.
After waiting 2 hours, 25 minutes, in which time the precipitation ranged from a fine mist to an extremely light drizzle, Crawford called the game, which had been scheduled to start at 7:05 p.m.
As the disappointed fans began to walk to their cars, no one was hurrying, no one raised an umbrella. Those already in their cars and driving did not turn on their windshield wipers.
Despite what Crawford might have thought, it wasn?t raining hard enough to get anyone wet, let alone hard enough to stop a baseball game.
?It?s a shame,? Crawford said. ?It was a big night, a nice crowd. We don?t like to disappoint people. It?s really a shame.?
Crawford told the respective managers, Lloyd McClendon and Grady Little, he didn?t want to start the game in the rain.
That was his first mistake. It was barely raining at 7:05. The game should have been started. If it had been started, it easily could have been played to its completion without anything approaching risk of injury to the players or inconvenience to the crowd.
Crawfords?s second mistake was not realizing his first mistake and starting the game. He could have done so at any time because it was never raining hard enough to call the game.
The Pirates played in considerably harder rain last month in Los Angeles. In fact, the weather in Los Angeles was of hurricane proportions compared to last night?s weather in Pittsburgh.
Crawford and his crew members simply blew it, and deserve at least a reprimand from Major League Baseball.
The rules of baseball put the game in the hands of the umpires.
The rules state: ?The right to postpone the playing of a game shall be vested in the home club with the exception of the final series between two clubs.?
Because this was the only time the Red Sox will be in Pittsburgh, the umpires were in control. In all other circumstances, the home team determines whether the game starts. Once a game starts, control reverts to the umpires.
Crawford?s decision cost the Pirates about $500,000, money the financially strapped organization can ill afford to lose.
The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader today, which means the Pirates lose the home date. Fans get two games for the price of one, but the Pirates can make money off of only one.
By the time Crawford called the game, many fans had left, disgusted that the teams were not playing even though it seemed clear to all that conditions permitted the game to begin.
McClendon hadn?t bothered to check on the weather after 9 p.m. and seemed surprised to learn it wasn?t raining any harder than it had been earlier.
General Manager Dave Littlefield wanted no part of any controversy.
?We want to play all our home games,? he said.
But was it raining hard enough to postpone the game? Littlefield just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
Major League Baseball is using a computerized system called QuesTec to determine how well umpires are calling balls and strikes. The umpires don?t like it.
Now it looks like the umpires need more help. They need help in determining whether it?s raining. But they won?t need a computer for this. Each umpiring crew should have a 10-year-old child available to make decisions about the weather. When it doubt, ask the kid to stick his hand out the window. Unlike the umpires, he?ll know if it?s raining.
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/c...izik0604p1.asp
You know, I kind of agree with him. I was watching on the Dish and the background hardly had any rain. These umpires are idiots..
Columnist rips umpires for canceling Pirates/Red Sox game. 
