In a bizarre incident, veteran head umpire Ed Montegue added a run to the Orioles total a full three innings after when he decided he had mistakenly disallowed a run it in a disputed play in the thrird inning. The play in the third inning is not so much the issue here since umpires make mistakes all of the time. The issue is where to draw the line. Where is the list of plays that an umpire can change his mind about? If an umpire can change his mind and then change the score of a game, what else is he allowed to do? And why is this particular change okay when others, say the much more common missed call on a bang-bang play at first base, not okay? Who decides? Montegue argues “”We kicked it around and now I’m having a brain cramp on it. It was my screw-up and we can’t go off of umpire’s error. What’s right is right. We have to score the run.” Huh? Again, why is this screw-up okay to fix but none of the others? A recommendation from baseball fans might read something like this: Get the call right the first time or figure out a universal dispute settlement mechanism that is fair but that doesn’t slow down the game (anymore than Mike Hargrove did all by himself in his day) and implement it….fast.
