This is a great post. I'm guessing that you are talking about umpiring at high school baseball games. That can be a lot of pressure.
But can you imagine how high the stakes are at a Big Ten basketball game when both teams are battling for seeds in the NCAA basketball tournament? Why in the world would they allow an obvious Ohio state fan to referee at an Ohio State home basketball game? That makes no sense to me. Based on your statements (which I agree with), even if this guy makes all the right calls, it isn't going to sit well with the Iowa coaching staff.
You're correct, I was talking about umping HS games.
Actually, people (including me until I tried it the first time) have no clue how hard it is to officiate a sport without even considering biases.
I have no clue if the guy is an OSU fan or not, but I will give my take on the subject...
Like I mentioned before, I've done a lot of games in my hometown and it would be easy for a reasonable person to think that's probably not a good idea. But to give an idea, here's a super simplistic rundown what goes through my feeble brain
every pitch
-Count?
-Outs?
-Runners? Where are they?
-Where on the field is my partner and is he in position?
-If I'm behind the plate, did we make eye contact and signal each other, i.e. are we both on the same page?
-Infield fly situation?
-Where am I going on a ground ball?
-Where am I going on a fly ball?
-Again, count?
-Again, outs?
-Is the batter in the box?
-Pitcher set?
-Call ball/strike.
-Start over.
And that's only for a swing or taken pitch. What I'm getting at is it's a constant barrage of shit going on for 2 plus hours, and if I'm being honest, I don't have time to think about whether I'm calling a game one-sided or not. When a play happens in front of you you literally have half a second to decide what you saw and call it. Any longer than that and you're not going to get asked to officiate too many more games. And I'm not on TV, or in front of 15,000 people who hate me, or worried that if I F up really bad that I might lose my livelihood. When I'm calling pitches I'm too focused on watching where it crosses to think, "Hmm, that was close, but XYZ coach was a dick last week, and I missed one bad a couple batters ago, and it's fucking hot out here and they're down by like 9 runs anyway, but I went to HS with this pitcher's mom and she's hot and just got divorced last year STRIKE!
Doesn't work like that in any sport. If people think so they don't have a clue, and that's why I don't rag on officials.
Yes, some of them suck, but I've never met one who was out to get another team, and if they suck it's been my experience that they
definitely suck equally bad for both teams
