This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Blake Schuster.
Major League Baseball umpires made a colossal mistake on Tuesday during a spring training contest between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles.
They proved just how much better off the game will be without them.
Let’s rewind. The Orioles and Pirates completed an exhibition contest with the home Pirates leading 7-4 after the top of the ninth inning. That concluded a game that didn’t count and promptly saw the umpires jog off the field. But the two teams decided they weren’t done. The Orioles wanted to get a bit more practice and both teams agreed to play the bottom of the ninth despite there being no need for it.
Whatever, it’s spring training, no big deal. Except the umpires didn’t come back on the field and the two clubs ended up continuing on just fine. Actually, that’s an understatement.
Here’s the correct way to phrase it: The game looked and sounded better without umpires lording over every moment.
If you had just tuned into the game not knowing what was going on you might have found yourself wondering why the viewing experience was significantly improved. The answer is simple. There weren’t any egotistic umpires around to make every action about themselves. No one shouting “Steeeeeeeeeerike” or softly muttering “ball”. No one performing dramatized punch-outs behind home plate or first base.
Just the quaint sound of the ball popping into the catcher’s mitt or snapping off the barrel of the bat.
It was serene. And with baseball already successfully testing out automatic strike zones in the minor leagues, we know MLB is closer to eliminating umpires than ever before. Tuesday’s accidental experiment only provided more evidence toward an inevitable conclusion.
You can’t really blame the umpires for leaving the field in this instance. The game was over. Their job was done. If the Orioles and Pirates want to continue playing an inning that doesn’t count in a game that doesn’t count, that’s on them.
But they should’ve at least had the self-awareness to realize that once Major Leaguers prove they can play without umpires on the field, it’s only going to make it that much harder to convince the sport how vital they are.
At a time when MLB is implementing rule changes at the speed of light (by baseball standards), umpires just gave up the game. They’re a relic of the past trying desperately to stake out a place in a future that only they believe exists.
Now we know for sure. The game will be just fine without them. In fact, it’ll be even better.
Quick hits: NHL power rankings … NFL free agency predictions … and more.
— The NHL trade deadline has been pretty wild so far, but it’s a good time to check out the latest power rankings with so many changes in the last week.
— Predicting where the top 21 NFL free agents will go and a look at seven wide receivers who could be traded and become the next Stefon Diggs.
— C.J. Gardner-Johnson blasted former Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon. Yikes.