Max wrote:

APRTW wrote:

You can expect to get to many borderline calls if your doing that.

Umps aren't supposed to be subject to that human frailty.  It's like a ref saying, 'this guy travels all the time, so when he moves with the ball, i'm calling it traveling whether it is or isn't'.  Or the much more common, 'this guy's move looks fabulous, so 'm not calling it traveling whether it is or it isn't.'

I see it as more of a subconscious thing.  Balls and strikes are judgement calls and they will be untill baseball impliments something like foxtracts for calling balls and strikes (not that I am for that).  If a guy is throwing the ball all over the place the ump expects him to miss.  If you expect to see something your mind leans that way.  In reverse the pitchers that is always close is going to get more borderline calls.  It goes for hitters to.  If Pujols takes a borderline strike on strike 3 it is more likely to be called a ball then it would be for another player because of his history of having a good eye.  I dont think the Ump is processing a conspiracy in the split second it takes him to make a call.  They have to decide and in that split second the mind will lean one way or another based on the past.  It is natural.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Which brings up back to Michael Jordan ...

I'm not saying Tom Glavine was a bad guy.  I'm saying it was up to MLB to correct that.  If the NBA was tone deaf, it wasn't MJ's fault, and unfortunately that league has gotten worse to the point that I don't watch it anymore.

artie_fufkin wrote:

"He hasn't established that pitch in that spot." I still have no idea what that means.

That's just it, and that's exactly what Morgan took on.  "See, some umps will tell you, 'that's not a strike in my strike zone'.  Well, that's not their privilege to decide what a strike is and isn't.  The rule book is very clear on that."

If Lech Walesa sometimes drones on about Solidarity, nothing can take away how awesome he was during that shining moment.  In a smaller way, Morgan gets that slack from me, too, for what he did as a color man in the '98 playoffs.

I'm not going to say that consistency should earn you strikes when the location is clearly a ball, but I will say one thing to counter this. Holland isn't Maddux, but Maddux could move a strike zone. That son of a bitch would throw a corner strike, and once he found it. He'd through ball after ball on it, slowly stretching it out a centimeter at a time. Eventually he'd be outside by 5 inches, and not get a call. Bring it in by half an inch, and STRIKE! By game's end, the dude would be throwing a good 2 balls over from the original corner, and getting the calls. There's a lot to be said about pre-disposition. If you've thrown 6 straight balls, you're not getting shit on the corner. On the other hand, if every breaking ball you throw is making hitters miss, and you ride letter high fastballs and blow them by the hitter. You are working on 5 consecutive outs with only 1 guy hitting something past the pitcher.... You throw that corner ball, you will get the call every time. It's the Leslie Nielson factor. You're pitching well, and the ump wants in on the action. That's probably the furthest thing from the truth, but that's really how it seems.

Case in point. Livan Hernandez in the NLCS, I'm pretty sure he was getting calls from Greg .... blargh whatever the hell his last name is before the ball even left his hand. He started with a decent outside edge, pushed it out a bit, got a lot of swings as a result of the odd zone, and by the time that game was over, Livan owned that umpire.

I think you are correct, Alz, in reminding us how good Maddux, and also Glavine were at causing the ump to expand the strike zone.  It was still bullshit, but two excellent location pitchers exploited a positive feedback loop.