From: andyc@is.morgan.com (Andrew Coad)
Subject: Re: Neutral Umpires ---> Pick your own !
Organization: Morgan Stanley - IS
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 16:04:35 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.152858.13722@bnrmtl.bnr.ca>, sewell@tsingtao.bnr.ca (Henry Sewell) writes:
|> I'm not keen on the adjective 'neutral' for umpires.
|> It presupposes a bias, for which there is no clear
|> and consistent evidence.
|> I would rather see a focus on 'better' umpires.

At last! Someone is address the issue rather than covering it up.

|> The performance of umpires can be monitored by
|> reviewing recordings of marginal decisions after the game.
|> This way umpires can be rated, and those who show
|> any bias or inconsistency under stress can be weeded
|> from the roster.

Not so good. After the match analysis cannot account for *why* an umpire made a certain decsion. E.g. if an umpire declined an appeal for out because (1) he was partially unsighted, or (2) he had a momentary lapse of concentration (this happens to everyone) or, (3) the call was so close he did not feel absolutely sure (and gave the batsman benefit of the doubt). In the cold light of a post-mortem, it is likely that the umpire will be penalised for making the right decision in all three cases above. In addi


tion, as I have already pointed out in an earlier posting, after the fact judgement from the viewpoint of a two dimensional TV monitor is likely to be equally inaccurate. Let me ask you a question - who is better to judge, the umpire in the middle or the reviewer in the TV box? One last train of thought on this issue - would a post match panel itself be biassed? I can best illustrate this by way of an example. If an umpire consistently gives "not-out" to repeated lbw calls would he be judged by a post-matc


h review more negatively than if he had a few "outs" thrown in? If, as in my opinion, a post-match panel are not better placed to judge than the actual umpire then the answer to the above must necessarily be yes and the net effect will cause umpires to give more outs in order to maintain rating.

|> Similarly, it would be interesting to monitor the
|> 'propensity to appeal' of teams, by looking at the
|> ratio of sensible appeals (out or marginal) to
|> psychological appeals (like gully screaming for an LBW)
|> which are intended to rattle the batsman and pressure
|> the umpire.

Yeah. the rate of appeal is an issue particularly if you rate umpires as suggested above. There seems to be a prevailing conviction in r.s.c netters that if a side appeals 40 times, one of them must surely have been out. This logic is about as sound as those who believe the odds of a head or tail vary the more you toss a coin. To me, the more appeals that are declined is an indication of better umpiring, not worse.

|> Since I moved to North America, I have seen many baseball
|> games..... ..... Rarely do the players argue
|> (though they don't always look happy!).....
|> 

Some replies to your posting have contested this point. But you are right. Remember that every pitch in baseball is a call of some type. Take the ratio of calls in baseball versus arguments to the calls in cricket versus arguments. i would strongly suspect that the calss-to-argument factor in cricket is higher than in baseball. Note also, that very few arguments occur as the result of a strike/ball call. Most arguments (and some of them are so pathetic I hope cricket never gets that way) come from calls fo


r tag-outs (particularly at the home plate).

AC
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