In the Semi-Final game of the World Baseball classic between the Dominican Republic and United States, Home Plate umpire Cory Blaser rang up 9-hole hitter Geraldo Perdomo on a pitch close to three ball lengths under the zone, leaving the tying run stranded on third and giving the U.S. their ticket into the championship game.
“That’s a ball,” said Sophomore Ryder Miller. “I don’t think that there was any bias.
I think human umpires are gonna be throughout history until we have robotics, which is a part that makes the game fun.”
Human officials leave room for error, which can add more fire to the game. When it gets to a point where it’s impacting monumental moments, is when it begins to become a pressing issue.
“I thought it was a pretty bad way to end the game… it’s pretty clearly a ball” said Junior Blake Jacobs. The game certainly had a ton of high stakes, so it’s easy to cry bias over a blown call.
“I mean umpires, they go under a lot of scrutiny, and sometimes they miss calls, that’s just how it is.” said Jacobs. “Sometimes that’s just how the game goes.” Miller agreed, “You would be able to tell if it was biased if it happened all game,”.
When deciphering Perdomo’s decision to leave the ball in the dirt, Miller said “ You either get absolutely flamed on social media for swinging at that pitch with the game on the line, or you get rung up,” Jacobs agreed “He’s a great hitter, and he definitely knows what he’s looking for, especially in that moment.”
Elite hitters are told to trust their mind and mechanics. In Perdomo’s case, he either goes against his teachings and chases a bad pitch, or he gets punished for doing everything right. “It’s a lose-lose situation.” said Miller.
Jacobs said when deciding whether that call won the game for the U.S., “I feel like it was a good game no matter what. Both teams, they’re stacked,” and Miller said “It’s hard to say, because we could have easily just gotten the next guy out”. Predicting the “what ifs” can spiral down a rabbit hole real quick. The bottom line is that there were a million outcomes that could’ve altered the end result, the final strike call was just the one that we witnessed.
Human officials result in human imperfection. Whether it’s Jim Joyce shattering Armando Galerraga’s perfect game, or Don Denkinger ruling Jorge Orta safe at first during Game 6 of the 1985 World Series, mistakes are the price we pay when giving fallible people a task requiring perfection. Whether you claim injustice or just chalk it up to a blatant mistake, it certainly doesn’t make the reality any less tragic. As Miller said, “It was just pure bad, a bad call.”
