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Good column on officiating from today's USA Today sports section

The same spirit that once moved Ralph Branca to write a letter to Scott Norwood inspired Don Denkinger to place a phone call to Doug Eddings, scapegoat to scapegoat, ump to ump.

"I just can't believe they won't let up," Eddings immediately told his retired frat brother.

Believe it, Denkinger responded. He had the hate mail and death threats as proof.

Worst call in World Series history — that was the nicest thing those letters said. Denkinger declared Kansas City's Jorge Orta safe at first in a Game 6 played 20 years back, even though St. Louis' Todd Worrell had the ball in his glove and his foot on the bag before Orta touched down.

The Cardinals blew their lead, then quit the following night. Denkinger didn't merely cost them Game 6. In their minds, he was responsible for the 11 runs the Royals would score in Game 7.

So Denkinger left a message for Eddings in the middle of a postseason gone mad. "He got back to me immediately," Denkinger said. The kid needed a place to hide. Eddings had called a third strike on A.J. Pierzynski in Game 2, then awarded him first base because he thought a third-string catcher named Josh Paul caught it on the bounce. The White Sox ran away as the Angels kept getting Pierzynski'd by the umps.

"Human beings make mistakes," Denkinger said.

Managers make mistakes. Players make mistakes. Pretzel vendors, pianists and real estate agents make mistakes. A sports columnist might even make the rare mistake.

But the big-league baseball umpire, or NFL referee? He's supposed to be a perfectly wired robot. His flesh and bone are held to the standards of science and steel.

Officials don't have the luxury of a delete key. Officials have the burden of getting it right, on the spot, with remarkably strong and swift athletes whipped into a frenzy by tens of thousands of overstimulated fans, and with every step and misstep frozen forever in the white-hot TV lights. Replay help is an occasional option. In college football, it's dismissed on a Pete Carroll whim.

An impossible job, officiating is. So the Angels fans who jeered Eddings should've saved their venom for Vladimir Guerrero and a lineup reduced to dust. The fan whose sign read, "I thought Don Denkinger retired," should've taken her cue from Mike Scioscia, who realized what Charlie Weis did after the Bush push stole his happy ending: Officials don't lose games.

Though Weis griped that a Trojans assistant had pulled a Chris Webber and signaled for a timeout he didn't have in the final, frantic seconds, Weis applauded Bush's ingenuity. This is the same Weis who mistook his field for the rough at Baltusrol.

Everyone's got an angle. Everyone except the officials. They try their best, and sometimes their best isn't good enough. Denkinger didn't want to go down in history any more than Richie Garcia wanted to make a folk hero out of Jeffrey Maier.

"When you're fighting the umpires," Denkinger said, "you're fighting the wrong element. You need to fight the other team."

You need to realize that a uniform doesn't cover human weakness like a tarp covers a wet October field.

FULL COLUMN:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/oconnor/2005-10-17-oconnor-umps_x.htm

Here Here, if it was an easy job, everyone would do it. I give refs as much a hard time as any coach out there, but respect the difficult job they have, especially when you get into professional leagues.

It is hard not to work the Refs during a game. I always wonder if I say too much. As a player it was obvious when I said too much. The way I see it Refs do a great job for the situation they have. In the B-division with only 2 refs per game, there is a lot of field and players to cover.

No matter how much is said during a game, heated exchanges, and so forth, i always thank the refs and shake their hands for calling a game.

Worst excuse in sports "the officials cost us the game". You see it Professional sports, coaches here their players talk about it.

I believe that everyone controls their own destiny. If a ref is calling it close it is up to the coaching staff and the captains of each team to adapt to the refs, not vice versa.

You never hear a winning coach say the refs gave us that game, because the winning team believes they always did enough to win the game, the losing team should have the same line of thinking. A penalty is a penalty whether it is called with 1 minute left in a tied game or when a team is up by 10 goals in the second quarter.

Keep the good work.

Appreciate your sentiments JW, but you have a few misconceptions in your post.

JW wrote:It is hard not to work the Refs during a game. I always wonder if I say too much.

If you are an assistant coach, yes you are saying too much - if you are directing ANY comments & asking questions to the referees. An assistant coach is there to coach on game day, end of story. The head coach is the only one that has the privileages of the coaches box with regard to dealing with the referees.

JW wrote:No matter how much is said during a game, heated exchanges, and so forth, i always thank the refs and shake their hands for calling a game.

Another no-no. Collegiate officials are instructed to leave the field immediately following the conclusion of the contest and not linger around for post-game handshakes, etc. How would you like it if your team just lost a very close game to your main rival and you see the winning team coach chatting with the game officials and shaking hands after the game is over? The perception (of favoritism) isn't good, even if the intent isn't there.

JW wrote:You never hear a winning coach say the refs gave us that game, because the winning team believes they always did enough to win the game, the losing team should have the same line of thinking.

I think that is an excellent point. I always hear players complaining about how the reffing supposedly had some kind of impact on the outcome of a play or game. The refs are out there trying to get it right, but they are not perfect. Every team gets calls in their favor, just as every team gets calls that go against them; it all evens out eventually. Blaming the calls a ref made is just a poor excuse for not getting it done on the field. The bottom line is that the refs aren't the ones out there with sticks in their hands, so they can't win the game for you. By the same token they can't lose it for you either.

tjmvp9 wrote:I think that is an excellent point. I always hear players complaining about how the reffing supposedly had some kind of impact on the outcome of a play or game. The refs are out there trying to get it right, but they are not perfect. Every team gets calls in their favor, just as every team gets calls that go against them; it all evens out eventually. Blaming the calls a ref made is just a poor excuse for not getting it done on the field. The bottom line is that the refs aren't the ones out there with sticks in their hands, so they can't win the game for you. By the same token they can't lose it for you either.

I often say that, while a particular call or no-call may make a difference in the outcome of the game, your job as a team is to be better than your opponents by a wide enough margin that such a call doesn't affect the outcome. And if it does, then the two teams are likely so evenly matched that the result of the game was likely to be a coin flip anyway.

It has always struck me how few people realize the degree of randomness in sports. There are hundreds of factors which combine to affect the results of games. The temperature, the wind, the length of the grass, how hard the ground is, whether a particular player happened to get sick, the fact that a player (or coach or official) got a poor night's sleep because some idiot's car alarm went off, the result of the opening coin toss, the middie who ran in front of the official at the exact moment needed to screen the official from a foul, the funny way the ball bounced off of an end plug that fell on the ground, the particular officials who got assigned to the game and the type of game they call. The list is endless.

In fact, the team that wins often thinks that they're "better" than the opponents, but we all know that if they played 100 times it's unlikely that the same team would win every game (unless it's Hopkins vs. a high school JV team or something ridiculous). In fact, with two fairly even teams, one team might win 55 out of 100 games; that team would be "the better team" in some sense, even if they happened to lose the one time they actually played.

Winning the game doesn't mean you're better; it just means to total of all factors in that particular game came out in your favor.

Anybody watch the Vanderbilt-UF game this weekend. If you think the refs didn't cost Vandy a shot to win that game in regulation, Your crazy. So to say the refs don't have a huge impact on a game is ridiculous.

EDIT: I am a moron.

cjwilhelmi wrote: Doesn't it need to be Team A vs Team B and not certain teams/officials?

I think he's talking about college football.

randalm wrote:Anybody watch the Vanderbilt-UF game this weekend. If you think the refs didn't cost Vandy a shot to win that game in regulation, Your crazy. So to say the refs don't have a huge impact on a game is ridiculous.

I didn't see the game, but who made more mistakes in the game: the players or the officials?

And are you sure you're even qualified to judge the officials? Have you passed exams on the rules and mechanics? Have you even read the rulebook?

Finally, no one is saying that a mistake by an official is never the difference in a game. The point is that everyone involved in the game makes mistakes, and it is ridiculous to try to make it seem like it's all the officials' fault when a bad call "decides" the game. The goal of your team should be to perform well enough that you'll still win when the inevitable calls go against you.

i dunno. i have always been a firm believer that an official doesnt decide the outcome of a game.

but the uf-vandy game made me think. given all that had happened, with 52 seconds left, they if nothing else took it out of the players hands to decide the game.

i dunno just a thought, thats not to bash an officials, i understand the job isnt perfect. i respect them, just sometimes am confused by them.

pepsi24 wrote:but the uf-vandy game made me think. given all that had happened, with 52 seconds left, they if nothing else took it out of the players hands to decide the game.

There were 52 seconds left in regulation, plus 2 overtime periods, after that supposed bad call. Plenty of time and opportunities for Vandy to win the game. Plus, you guys are assuming that their 2-pt conversion would have been successful and that Florida wouldn't have scored again in regulation. Lots and lots of assumptions here.

And are you sure you're even qualified to judge the officials? Have you passed exams on the rules and mechanics? Have you even read the rulebook?

If your talking lacrosse, I'm positive. And yes I've passed the exams and read the rulebook. If your talking football, the Vandy-UF game, which you admittedly didn't even see, you don't need to be qualified to realize he blew that call.

Plus, you guys are assuming that their 2-pt conversion would have been successful and that Florida wouldn't have scored again in regulation. Lots and lots of assumptions here.

I'm not assuming anything, My post says the official cost Vandy a shot at winning the game.

As for your question of who made more mistakes, the players or officials. Who cares, it wasn't Vandy's job to make less mistakes than the officials. It was their job to make less mistakes than Florida. Which they did.

And to say that in two evenly matched teams, you should play well enough where one call doesn't decide the game. I completly agree. But what about in two unevenly matched teams. I keep going back to the same example to try and avoid the team A vs. team B thing. But Vandy is much less of a team than UF and in the swamp. Probably at least a 10 point underdog. So now your telling me Vandy not only has to play well enough to beat Florida but also well enough to make up for the refs as well. That's ridiculous.

All this being said, I have been a player, coach and an official. And on game day, by far the hardest position on the field is that of the ref. It is incredibly easy to make the calls as an onlooker, but as soon as your opinion is the one that counts, it becomes a whole lot more difficult. No one is trying to argue that an officials job isn't difficult, and everyone involved in the game makes numerous mistakes, but an official should do everything within reason to put the game in the players hands. And I think most do.

It was their job to make less mistakes than Florida. Which they did.

You are assuming that Vandy made less mistakes then Florida. In the official's judgement, they didn't. (At least in that one particular call with 52 seconds left.)

Furthermore, the point is to win the contest - not make less mistakes then your opponent. In virtually every single sporting event, you can make more mistakes than your opponent and still win the game.

As long as their are humans playing and officiating sports, some mistakes will be made. Some will be made with 52 seconds left in regulation. And some will be made 52 seconds into the start of the game. And some won't be mistakes at all, just viewed that way by the team on the losing end.

I was at the UF-Vandy game.... IF vandy wanted to go for 2 so bad, why didn't they do it in overtime to win?

Same ref crew was in Columbia.... Uf - 11 penalties, SC - 3 (when has a Spurrier coached team ever had three penalties in a game?). Did their biased calling cost us the game? No. Our offense did.

As for lax, good advice sonny, especially the handshake thing.

Dave