Sam Morley

Parker and his 91 mph fastball were really going for the bullseye last night. Everyone is always talking about how great it is to paint the corners, but no one ever gives credit for nailing the exact dead center of the strike zone. Tip of the hat, B.

I just did a couple practice swings. It seems like the early wrist rollover and the front arm being close to the body come together when using a 'hands first' approach or an approach where I throw my hands toward the contact point. This in contrast with a rotational approach where my hips lead, my hands stay back but then are whipped through by the lat/core tension- when I do this, there is automatically more space between my lead arm and body, and my wrist doesn't roll over early. Can't say whether or not somebody was in buck's ear about an old school charley lau throw your hands at the ball approach to hitting, and now the spirit of Ted Williams has set him straight, but these before and after samples are pretty cool. Parker, I have been following your hitting analysis on TD for the last five years or so, and I think this might be your best yet. Those are some pretty subtle differences in those videos/photos, and not easy to see, let alone synthesize into a larger theory that is probably correct and not just speculative. What inspired you to look for those specific changes in his swing? The arm-body space is especially difficult to see.

What was with 'Richard' going on and on about how Sano's first double should've been caught and should've been ruled an error? The guy's been watching baseball for like 60 years and still doesn't know the threshold for outfield errors. The ball should've been caught, yes, but the fielder was sliding and didn't touch it. An outfielder basically has to be standing still and have the ball bounce out of his glove before they ever rule an error. Love when Latroy Hawkins is in the both. He's so weird.

A hitter positions himself relative to the plate so that he has full plate coverage with a repeatable swing. He doesn't want to change his swing for any reason- not to pull or "push" the ball, not to reach a pitch in a specific location. He wants to swing the same every time. He wants to cover the width of the strike zone with authority. To hit a ball with authority you contact with the ball on the sweet spot of the barell. With a repeatable, mechanically correct swing, on an inside pitch you want to make contact out in front of where your stride foot lands- you will pull this pitch. On an outside pitch, with the same swing, you want to make contact deeper, a little past where your stride foot has landed- you will hit this pitch to the opposite field. If you are early on an outside pitch, in anticipation of an inside fastball, you will make weak contact. Often a hitter is early with his lower half, recognizes the location (or offspeed pitch) and tries to slow his hands down and/or reach to make contact. his weight is on a flexed front leg, his butt sticks back, his back arm is extended at the point of contact instead of in a "power L". The contact is weak. I'm not saying that no one has ever pulled an outside pitch. I'm saying it's unusual, and generally unlikely. When there are so many things to keep track of and react to as a hitter (location, velocity variability, movement) one approach to making things a little easier is to isolate focus. You can do this from pitch to pitch based on a variety of information, and obviously the extent to which a hitter is intellectually capable of doing this will have an impact on his success. You can also do it generally. Some hitters will just disregard a whole portion of the zone. I would say pretty much every hitter has done this to some extent. Even Ted Williams pretty much eliminated low and away. I think the way hitters do this differs along two different paths. One is that a hitter recognizes the pitch in the eliminated part of the zone, and refuses to swing at it. The other is that a hitter doesn't make the recognition and swings as though he hopes the pitch will be in the part of the zone he likes. The former is a better approach, but it relies on the abilities of the hitter to work. For a hitter whose spray chart is so heavy to the pull side that a defense shifts to that side (this is a hitter who is obviously isolating focus on middle-inside part of the zone) the pitcher's job is easier. He can expose the hitter for called and swinging strikes on the outer third, and force him to hit into the shift on the inner third (the area the hitter is focused on). The hitter is left with (as this article suggests): beat the shift by hitting over it with launch angle plus exit velocity. So, either hit a jack or get lucky. I would say this is pretty much what we see now in MLB. Hitters are successful at hitting more home runs, but the chances of any other hard hit (or weakly hit) ball landing for a base hit are reduced significantly, with the exposed vulnerable parts of the strike zone yielding more strike outs. A hitter who can "go with the pitch"- pull the inside pitch and hit the outside pitch away- with the same powerful swing, has a serious advantage over the hitter who isolates. One of the tricks to being able to hit the outside pitch with authority is that you have to "wait" for it, which is a weird concept when we're talking about milliseconds. You have to wait for it to travel just a little bit deeper in the zone, like maybe 8-12 inches deeper. (Also, how the &!%# do you "wait" when the pitch is coming well over 90 mph most of the time?) I think the hitters who do this successfully, are focused first on the outer third- they are thinking about "waiting" and letting the ball travel a little deeper and driving it the other way; AND, they are trusting their instincts to recognize and quickness to react to the inside pitch and pull it. Ability to recognize (location or pitch type) is increased by the extra wait time. It can also be increased by "shortening" the swing- less load action (maybe no leg kick, maybe the hands fire from a position closer to the point of contact rather than loading back to a more powerful counter rotated position, a position farther from the point of contact)- this would obviously sacrifice power in favor of contact. The closer that your hands are to the point of contact when they fire, the longer you can wait before firing. It is a HUGE advantage to be able to cover the outer third and hit the ball to the opposite field. To be able to do it with authority (and still be able to recognize, react, and turn on the inside pitch) is a demonstration of exceptionally capable hitting. To do it, a hitter has to have exceptional vision, be smart, have a mechanically powerful, repeatable swing, be able to "wait", and be able to react with elite quickness. Vision can be measured, and corrected to an extent if needed. Intelligence can be evaluated (and maybe improved???). A swing can be learned. Ability to wait can be learned. Quickness can be measured, and it can be optimized. I bet most MLB guys have the vision, swing, and quickness. I bet their intelligence is generally disregarded. I bet (traditionally) hitting instructors put a lot of effort into teaching hitters how to "wait". I'm happy to see launch angle and exit velocity embraced, and in particular the amended philosophy on bat path to facilitate increases in launch angle and exit velocity. I think even, along these lines, it is fine for some hitters to have a pull first approach. That approach would be relative to their intellect and to their skills, and maybe for them it happens to be optimal and it makes them the most productive hitter they can be. I think a hitting instructor's job is to help them figure that out. If I'm a hitting instructor, the general approach I advocate is to think 'cover the outer third to the opposite field first, and trust my quickness to react to the inner third'. It's interesting that while annual home run totals are up relative to league history, annual home run totals for the league's elite hitters are pretty stable. Mike Trout is the best hitter in baseball. He doesn't strike out a lot, he walks a lot, his avg is over 300, his obp is over 400, he hits 30-40 dingers. it's pretty comparable to elite hitters of the past (home run spikes of the steroid era aside). Recent elites, Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols have similar numbers. The overall annual homerun total increases are not accounted for in elite hitters hitting more homeruns, but rather sub-elite hitters, and even sub all-star hitters hitting more homeruns. I'll draw from this that the approach of elite hitters has stayed constant over time, and that we see sub-elite hitters favoring one approach/result over another (presently, power over contact). If the league has a temporary trend in a specific direction, in order to be competitive in the league you either have to be among the best at executing the characteristics of the trend or find the weaknesses in the trend and expose them with opposing characteristics. The teams that will be the best at executing the trend will be the teams that are willing to spend the most money, or get lucky in the draft/develop their talent most successfully. Maybe the Twins will be one of these teams. They usually aren't. I hope they are, because I don't see any signs of them being an organization ready to find and expose the weaknesses of trending MLB defense/pitching strategy. I wonder if there are any organizations out there who have been recruiting/developing contact hitters. I would like to see it. I think a lineup of hitters who aren't exposable on the outer third would tear up the league. And I think they could have a sustained run. I think it would take a while for organizations to adjust. I'm not advocating for a return to small ball. I stand firmly against the sacrifice bunt. It's a waste of an out. I don't think it's exciting. I do like a hit and run- maybe in an offspeed count, with a runner who has a chance of a clean steal anyway, and with a non-elite hitter at the plate. Hit and runs are exciting. I would like to see more balance from hitters, even if it means a drop in power from guys like, say, Brian Dozier. I would be happy to see bunts for hits into the shift. I would be happy to see it over and over and over again until the shift goes away, if that's what it takes. The shift is ugly. I would rather see the game take care of it naturally than have it legislated away. Chicks dig the long post.

He switches which knee is down often. Does anyone have insight into why/when it changes? It's not singly relative to the handedness of the batter, nor does it seem to be singly relative to the pitch. Could it be random? What is the risk of tipping pitches/location? Some of his movements in that video are really extreme, like he snatches his glove what appears to be more than six inches several times. I understand curling and cushioning toward the center, but I don't understand how such dramatic movements can be effective. Aren't umpires resentful of such overt deception? If I was umping and I saw a catcher yanking his glove around like that, I would really be on guard- I might even tell him to knock it off. Or maybe when you are trying to steal every single pitch, even the outlandish ones, it makes the close ones seem even closer by comparison. In my mind, framing is about moving the ball closer to the zone without it seeming like you're moving the ball closer to the zone.

First, I don't think the pace of play is a problem. Were it, I don't think any of the proposed rule changes will affect the pace of play enough to address the "problem". Shortening the overall game length by five or so minutes will not make the game any more appealling to people who already think that baseball is boring. They will not notice any difference. A diffinitive characteristic of baseball, in contrast to other team sports, is that there is not clock or timer. While all of the other major team sports rely on a clock as a necessary part of the structure that makes their sport possible, baseball was uniquely designed and created to not need one. Keep clocks out of baseball. It seems like the roster expansion runs in conflict with the aims of quickening pace and shortening game length. In particular, if there were a three batter minimum, it reasons that fewer pitchers will be used per game. It seems like an additional player available will increase the amount of pitching changes per game, therefor lengthening the duration of games. I think, pace aside, the three batter minimum rule could encourage managers to return to relying on starters in a more traditional way, asking them to pitch deeper into games than has been the recent trend. It seems like often when a manager goes to an early hook (in anticipation of damage, not as a result of) they often bring in a one out specialist. I don't really like the trend away from reliance on starting pitching. I think that starters are the best pitchers, and I want to see them pitch. I want to see what they are made of when the going gets tough. As for the DH in the NL... who cares. The NL is Mars. Let them be Martians, and when on Mars, do as the Martians do.

I think there are basically two schools of hitting: the Ted Williams Science of Hitting which instructs rotational hitting with a slight uppercut bat path; and a hands first approach that I think was popularized by Charley Lau, but you'd hear Tony Gwynn talk about it, and it's what you hear from Kepler some too. In my opinion, the Ted Williams theory is the correct theory. I used to source a lot of hitting mechanics info from a website called ChrisOleary.com and I think he does a really excellent, thorough job of frame by frame swing analysis that confirms Williams' ideas. He points out, and I agree, that even hitters who say they believe in the hands first theory, don't actually even swing that way when you analyze their swing frame by frame. Max Kepler might say that he has a hands first approach, but he doesn't. he has a rotational swing with slight uppercut. Sometimes as a hitter you adopt a mental approach to help over compensate for a negative developing trend. If I feel like I'm popping up a lot, I'll start telling myself to come down on the ball and that's what I imagine myself doing. It seems, sometimes, to help straighten things out, but I'm never actually swinging down on top of the ball. I sometimes wonder, if Kepler would be well served by embracing the concept of the slight uppercut. There were power hitters who believed in the "downward" hands first swing. They thought that putting backspin on the ball helped the ball carry farther. I'm certain this has been physically debunked. The best way to hit the ball the hardest and the farthest is to meet the ball on the same angle that it is coming toward you. The ball is always coming to you at a downward angle from the pitcher's release point, so to meet the ball squarely, you have swing with a slight uppercut. "Launch angle" is a new term. It's interesting. The uppercut swing is not new. Also the repeated use of "uppercut" makes it sound like guys are taking golf swings up there. If you freeze frame any homerun swing at the point of contact, the uppercut is subtle. Guys' follow throughs will give the appearance of a massive uppercut, with their hands finishing up high, but the follow through is just the result of what's come before (how do you load, rotate, and transfer your weight). One other thing that's been debunked is the old 'squash the bug' with your back foot. It turns out that in a proper swing, the foot twisting or rolling over is a result of the hips rotating and snapping, and that at the point of contact, most hitters' back foot is actually off the ground for a fraction of a second. If you're focusing on 'squashing the bug' then your actually holding back some of the power you've generated in your hips, you aren't letting all of your weight transfer through.

A team in the Twins position should be looking to add starting pitching that will take them from being a playoff looser to a playoff winner. Darvish, Archer, Arrieta, maybe Cole are names that have been out there that would have that effect if added. Odirizzi, Cobb, Lynn, McHugh wouldn't. They will get you through the season, maybe help you make the playoffs and then not have what it takes when the competition ramps up against great teams. The ways to acquire an impact starter are through free agency, trade, or development. We missed Darvish. It sounds like they aren't interested in Arrieta. There isn't anybody else in free agency unless you get lucky on a reclamation project. Getting Archer would be good. McHugh is a decent starting pitcher. He's not going to come for nothing. You're going to have to give up assets you like for a guy who isn't really going to make a difference in the postseason. If they can't put a rotation together through free agency and/or trade acquisition that can be great in the playoffs, then I'd rather see what the young guys can do, and I definitely don't want to lose any young guys to get veteran mediocrity. I suppose the likes of one or two of those 2nd tier guys could keep the Twins competitive through the all star break and put them in position to be buyers at the trade deadline where they could potentially add somebody who could make a difference in the playoffs.

Nobody would say that Mack was better than any of those players, besides maybe Smalley and Jones, even though he had a higher OPS. If OPS doesn't demonstrate that Mack is better than Mauer, Puckett, Oliva, or Carew, why would it demonstrate that he was better than Hunter or Jones? Mack never hit 20 home runs in a season. He had one season where he scored 100 runs, and wasn't really close in any other season. He never even approached 100 RBI. Jones and Hunter both have the edge in all three of these counting categories. Mack has the edge in the % categories. He deserves credit for that, and if he did it for a decade, he'd probably be the man, but he only had a handful of seasons with the Twins, only two truly full seasons. And what can you really say about his shortened monster of a season in 94 other than that it was a monster of a half season? Maybe he would've maintained that production over the course of the full season, or maybe he would've leveled off a bit, like so many players who have monster first halves. Tenure or no, Hunter was better, and I don't think it's close. Hunter has at least five seasons with the Twins that are each better than Mack's best season. I like Mack, but I wanted to see if there was anyone in left with more tenure with the Twins that compared, and I think there is a good case for Jones. I think if you take Jones top three or four seasons with the Twins and compare them to Mack's top three or four, Jones is better. If you take Jones' best five and comp them to Mack's five, Jones nearly doubles him in HRs, and surpasses him in runs, RBI, and doubles, where Mack has the edge in walks, triples, and SBs.

I would've cut you some slack if you had put Torii in left. Even if you're being strict, I'd say Jaque Jones is a better choice in left than Shane Mack. Not sure how you picked Koskie over Gaetti at third. This baffles me a bit. I don't think it's close. I think Gaetti has him at the plate, in the field, and in tenure. I think Gaetti has him in best single season and in overall career stats as well. You're assessment of Gaetti as 'not a great player' is off. His career numbers are borderline HOF. Also, he was pretty exclusively a third baseman. I was hoping to build a case for Cristian Guzman at short over Smalley. It would be a stretch. I love Chuck Knoblauch, I like him more than Brian Dozier, but Brian Dozier is better. Given how terrible it appears Carew was in the field (33 errors at 2nd in 1974!) I think I'd put Dozier at second and have Carew as the utility guy. Having Dozier in the lineup gives this present era a little more representation. I think I would cut Koskie and keep Knoblauch. I'd prefer to see another starter who just missed the cut in the 'middle relief' role over Tom Hall, who admittedly (perhaps embarrassingly) I've never heard of. I'd take Eddie Guardado over Juan Rincon.

Wait, there's a replay?! This whole time I've been basing my opinion of that play on my memory of seeing it live as a seven year old, and you're telling me there's a replay?! Stand by... In any other context, I'd argue the same point. It's my duty, and it's fun. I've never met or heard a non Twins fan who thought that Hrbek didn't pull Gant off the bag.

"You believe a computer can beat me?" - MLB umpire, Dwight Schrutt

you think Jose altuve and Richie sexon should have the same strike zone?

If I'm batting, and the count is let's say, 1-1, and a pitcher throws a pitch- which I take- on the outside corner, it's in the zone, but the umpire calls it a ball, and now the count is 2-1- that's fun. It is fair. It's fair because everybody gets calls in their favor and calls against them. It comes out in the wash. In one of the worst calls in Twins history, a ball Joe Mauer hit was called foul even though it was fair. It sucked. In one of the worst calls in Twins history, Kent Hrbek pulled Ron Gant off first base and he was called out. It was and still is tremendous fun. Occasional blown calls are fair and fun!

It would just be a benign, friendly relationship. The relationship would cease to have any bearing on the game. What's unique about the relationship is that it has elements of both comradery and adversary.

It matters in that one is more fun than the other. People calling pitches is more fun than machines calling pitches. It's important that the people calling pitches do their absolute best to make the right call, but getting the call right 100% of the time is not so important that people should be replaced by machines.

Shoot. I'd recommend any of his books. A Language Older than Words is really good, and The Culture of Make Believe is specifically about some of the themes discussed in this thread- it's probably a more relevant referral than Endgame. Can't believe I spelled his name wrong. In a post espousing a alternate theory of history, I simultaneously espoused an alternate spelling of an author's name! Hopefully no one reads into it.

I guess you'll just have to read the whole thing, then.

Greg Maddux, my god. Maybe you, or someone else will write more about the ways pitchers respond to/interact with umpires to gain advantage/avoid disadvantage. I think there's even more to be said about the dynamic between pitchers and umpires than there is about that between hitters and umpires. I'd add to it, the relationship between catchers and umpires. I've spent enough time as a catcher to know how important it is. When an ump calls a borderline pitch a ball that you felt should've been a strike, and you quietly, questioningly go, "ohhh" and the ump responds, just as quietly, "just missed." - I don't know, it almost chokes me up, imagining that disappearing from the game. I agree with this: "It shouldn't be the umpire's job to think "Castro was over there, Gregorius isn't biting, so this pitch that's still only half way to the plate should be called a ball." The umpire's thinking should be "did this pitch pass through the strike zone?"" I don't like it when umpires consciously assert themselves on the game. I want them to be as unbiased, as objective, and as true to the rules as they are written as is humanly possible. It bothers me as a Twins fan that that umpire go that call wrong. It doesn't bother me at all as a baseball fan. I think the umpire was fooled by the combination of Castro's positioning and Santana's control. I think it's ironic that it was a combination of the catcher's and the pitcher's actions that confused the umpire into calling the pitch a ball. I think it's interesting. I mean, it's so interesting that we're talking about it now.

What I've concluded from my own personal studies is that there is a difference between civilized and indigenous societies. Usually, the term 'civilized' is used in a positive connotation, probably because the people using it are members of a civilization. A civilization is based on a permanent settlement in a single geographic location. It requires the harvesting of natural resources in that geographic location to begin. As it depletes the natural resources within its immediate vicinity, which it always does, it has to extend its harvesting to further and further surrounding areas, especially as it grows and expands, which it always does. A result is wars between civilizations expanding closer to each others' territory, and competition for increasingly scarce resources and unpolluted spaces. By contrast, a definitive characteristic of indigenous societies, throughout history and around the world, is flexibility with the land it lives on. They tend to be nomadic, following game migration patterns, and their impermanence allows individual geographic spaces that they occupy seasonally to recover when they leave. Additionally, their mobile lifestyle is a contributing factor in keeping their population from growing to a size that would be overly demanding of the land. There are certainly competing historical theories about the nature and extent of indigenous tribal warfare. Some suggest that wars between tribes were most often far more akin to dangerous athletic competition between rivals than to the extreme and massive violence of wars between civilizations; and that death was a rare occurrence. Large, violent wars are made possible, in part, by large, expendable populations. Indeed, success in war demands a large, expendable population. When a population is small, like that of an indigenous society, the value of each individual member of that society to that society is far greater. The risk of large scale war would be too great, not to mention generally unnecessary. The diversity of subcultures and societies of indigenous people in America at the time of the arrival of civilized societies is evidence to me that they were not at war with each other- certainly not in the sense that civilizations make war with each other. The notion that human beings are innately greedy, murderous, and destructive is a misconception perpetuated by civilized societies in order to justify their continued existence. Greed, murder, and destruction are socially conditioned symptoms of civilization. Civilization as a social structure for human beings isn't even that old- it's mutant offspring, Industrial Civilization, is even younger. Human beings existed peacefully and successfully for millennia before the advent of civilization. Admittedly, I don't have a time machine. Neither am I going to attempt to source all of the material from which I have drawn my personal conclusions. I will say, that before I decided to investigate for myself, I had always assumed the ubiquity of violence in humanity throughout history. I was surprised to even discover alternate theories, and pleased to find them far more compelling than my old conditioned assumptions. Derek Jensen has an astoundingly comprehensive, well sourced, two volume work called Endgame that deals with civilization.

I can try. I've never been a pitcher, so my perspective is that of a hitter. And, it's complicated because it's layered with having to battle the pitcher as well. Also, it's not just about "working" the umps, but also adjusting to them. And, it's not really just about working the ump in the sense that somehow you can influence them to get a pitch that is a strike called a ball; it's more about using the way an ump is calling the zone to 'work' the pitcher, and to work the count to your favor. Let's start with this: The best hitters have: a mechanically flawless swing (in my opinion best described by Ted Williams in the Science of Hitting- contemporary analysts have built on what Ted wrote about, but his theory is the base); they have balance; patience; great vision; fast hands/hips; power; excellent plate/zone coverage; excellent awareness of the strike zone; awareness of individual pitchers strengths/weaknesses; excellent pitch recognition; awareness of individual umpire tendencies; and determination. Now, let's talk about plate/zone coverage. very few hitters have total zone coverage. Almost everyone has a weak spot in their zone. For Ted Williams, it was low and away. That is a pretty common weak spot. I'd say the same for myself. It's interesting because I know that with a balanced, patient swing, I can cover the low, outside part of the plate without altering my natural swing. I can do it in BP all day and shoot line drives to the triple alley in right center. But against live pitching, when I don't know what is coming, a pitch in that location just looks bad to me. One strategy to deal with this, is to eliminate certain parts of the zone. Because it's so difficult to cover the whole zone with authority, just eliminate the part of it that you like the least. You do this by first knowing what part of the zone you can cover reliably on reaction alone- what you call your sweet spot. You don't have to think about this area in your mental preparation because you know you can cover it no matter what. The more naturally gifted and polished you are, the bigger this area is and the better off you are. The next thing is to pick an area that is outside of your sweet spot and look for the ball there. This area will likely move around based on the pitcher, and also possibly based on the umpire. It will move or be disregarded altogether from pitch to pitch depending on the count, and or the situation (number of outs, runners on, score, inning, etc). The final thing is to just eliminate a part of the zone that you don't want anything to do with no matter what. If the pitch is in your sweet spot, you react to it and hit it. If it's in the spot that you are looking, you're ready to hit it there. If it's in the spot you eliminate, you don't swing. So let's say you eliminate down and away. I would say that close to 90% of the time I eliminate down and away. Here is where the umpire can start to become a part of your approach and strategy as a hitter. First of all, in order to have any reliable influence over an umpire as a hitter, you have to develop a reputation for having a good eye, for know the strike zone, for patience and discipline. Others in this thread have mentioned Joe Mauer. He is a great example. You develop a reputation over the course of a career, a season, and I'd say you can even develop a reputation in the course of a single game. I'm 34 and play once a week in the TCMABL. Do any umpires remember me as a hitter over the course of a season? I highly doubt it, but I believe I can develop something of a reputation within the course of one game. Ted Williams talks about preparing for your third at bat (hopefully it will be against the same pitcher). You gather information in your first two at bats, and you establish yourself in your first two at bats. You gather information about the pitcher and the umpire, and you establish yourself to them. What I mean by establish yourself is: let's say you decide not to swing at anything low and away in your first two at bats, even if it looks close or like it might be a strike, even if it means taking strike three. If you take the first pitch thrown in that location, whether or not its called a strike, the pitcher thinks he won't be able to expand, and also isn't sure if it's worth trying to repeat (depending on how confident he is in his control). If it is called a strike, you have learned it's possible the umpire will call it a strike again in the future; the pitcher has learned the same, as well as the possibility that you are not willing to swing there- he has to choose whether or not to attack that spot; the umpire has learned that you did not think that it was a strike- how that affects him consciously and/or subconsciously is a mystery. I think that if I take a pitch that is a borderline strike, just the act of my having taken the pitch tilts the likelihood that it will be called a ball in my favor. I think if it is called a strike, it still tilts the likelihood that a future pitch in the same location will be called in my favor. Whether or not you are 'allowed' to argue balls and strikes, there are ways to communicate your disagreement with a call. Generally, you want to express your disagreement with respect, as respect given generally begets respect returned, and is a part of the reputation you are trying to develop. I think that if an umpire respects you or even likes you, that is another thing that can subconsciously tilt calls in your favor. The more you develop your reputation to the umpire for having a good eye, good discipline, and for being generally respectful and affable, the more weight the occasional forceful expression of disagreement will carry. (I think that if you are a catcher, you have an added, special advantage as a hitter because of the relationship you develop with the umpire when you are behind the plate with him.) When an umpire calls a pitch a strike that is a ball, I think every hitter goes, 'okay, fine. now when am I going to get that one back?' You put it in your back pocket, and if you're smart/lucky you play it when you're behind in the count and are trying to get back into an at bat. Maybe all of that can be described as 'working' the ump, and I could go on about that aspect of it, but it's just one part of the challenge. All of that gamesmanship applies best when you have a consistent umpire behind the plate, when you can trust his zone to be true to the standard or at least to his version of it. Then you can be patient; you can attempt to work the count to your favor, when you can eliminate all of the zone except your sweet spot if you want. But if you have an inconsistent ump, one who isn't trustworthy, you have to be able to adjust to that as well, and the challenge of having to make that adjustment is part of the fun. Sometimes, in the TCMABL, we get an ump whose zone is big and all over the place. In that case, I just go up there looking to swing. It's the challenge of not letting an unreliable umpire beat me. Obviously, in MLB, the umps are generally reliable, and they have documented reputations. Maybe you know an ump doesn't call the low strike, so that's more zone you can eliminate. Maybe in your first two at bats, and in watching your teammates' at bats, you learn that just tonight, he doesn't seem to be calling the low strike, and when you go up for your third at bat, you know you can eliminate that spot. What the pitcher is pitching plus what the ump is calling, and how you're responding to it (taking, swinging and hitting well or poorly, swinging and missing) can set you up to fool the pitcher in a later at bat. Maybe you've been taking low and away all night, and the ump has been calling it a strike all night; now the pitcher thinks he can throw it low and away, you won't swing, and the ump will call it a strike; but this time you decide to look low and away, and because you're ready for it, because you've worked both the umpire and the pitcher to a point where you can reliably expect to see a borderline strike down and away, when the pitcher throws it there, this time you hit it in the triple alley and the pitcher is furious. Every layer of uncertainty adds drama, intrigue, and challenge. The batter is uncertain what pitch is coming. The pitcher is uncertain what the batter is ready for. Both are uncertain how a pitch taken will be called by the umpire. When a called pitch goes against you, it can be infuriating. When it goes your way, it can be gleeful.

Brothers K is a great novel. It's my favorite baseball novel by far. Awesome reference.

That's funny, and I don't really pay that much attention to who the umpire is either. But that doesn't mean that the umpire's role isn't an interesting part of the game. I think having an umpire adds another level complexity and challenge for the players. It makes what they do more interesting and impressive. As long as I've played, I've always paid attention to what the umpire's tendencies are. Sometimes there's an advantage to be gained and exploited. Sometimes you have to decide not to let an umpire beat you. If you are adept and fast at recognizing and adjusting to what an ump is doing, you have a competitive advantage. It's a skill, just like having a good eye and plate discipline are a skill, just like having lightning fast hands is a skill, and just like having tremendous power is a skill. All skills are not equal, and umpire management might not be nearly as important as the others I listed, but it can be used to make up for a lack of one of the others, and it's definitely something that combines to set the very best apart from the very good.

To suggest that naming a professional or school sports team after a specific tribe, or a general Native American slur and/or 'nickname' is in any way meant to honor Native Americans is just as, if not more so, offensive/disrespectful as the name being used itself. What Native Americans have experienced, at the hands of the U.S. government, its citizens, and its corporations, can be described by many standards as genocide. Many academics in the field argue, compellingly, that it is ongoing. It is nonsense for a culture to claim that in one, symbolic, act it honors another culture while simultaneously marginalizing and destroying it in every other action it takes toward that culture. "Hey, Native Americans, didn't you know it's an honor to you that the city of Cleveland, Ohio named its professional baseball team the "Indians"; can't you tell it's an honor by the way you've been treated in every other way by the U.S. and it's people? Can't you see how much we respect and honor you by how we stole and destroyed your land, killed you by the millions, disregarded treaties we made with you, rounded you up and relocated you onto undesirable land, took your children to boarding schools where your language, stories, ceremonies, and ways were extinguished? We have the best honor, let me tell you. Nobody has more honor for you than we do."

Here's how I look at this: If someone insults you perpetually for years, with no end in sight, and you've exhausted all of your means of fighting back, then A, your best defense is to feign indifference/ambivalence hoping they lose interest, or actually internalize a genuine position of indifference/ambivalence, which would be soul crushing, and B, if one day, in addition to continuing to insult you, they start asking you if you're offended by being insulted, and then they use your presentment of indifference/ambivalence as justification for continuing to insult you- well, that's some crazy, absurdist, Machiavellian, Catch-22 bull-honky, right there.