“I saw the pitch and of course don’t have the chance to do it again. But had I had a chance to do it again, I wouldn’t call that pitch a strike.”
—– American League Umpire Marty Foster, in the wake of the controversy over his game-ending strike call in the Texas-Tampa Bay game last night.
In other words, “I missed it. I was wrong.”
Strike Three?
Good for Foster. His wildly inaccurate call was strike three on Rays batter Ben Zobrist, who thought that he had worked a base on balls. This would have placed Rays runners on first and second with two outs, creating a reasonable opportunity for the Rays to tie or win the game. Instead, the Rangers got a gift. Rays manager Joe Maddon, in interviews and in a tweet to his followers, said, “That can’t happen in a major league game,” meaning that the call was beneath major league umpiring standards. Of Maddon, Foster said, “He was frustrated and I understand .He acted probably the best he can under that situation.”
Obviously, there have been many, many worse calls, nearly as bad calls, and only a smidge better calls, and there will be this season. In the vast majority of those, umpires have and will remain mum, maintaining that they were in the best position to judge the pitch or the play, and that even video showing their gaffes are misleading. Foster, however, did the hardest thing for many of us: admitting a mistake. Admitting so, to himself as well as the world, doesn’t make him a worse umpire; it makes him a better one.
Note: I apologize for the sparse postings the last few days. I am involved in a night and day project that is preventing me from doing thinking and working on anything else…even baseball. Naturally, the only game update I happened to watch, at 2:20 AM, was an ethics story.
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Sources: NBC Sports (and Graphic); Townhall
Ethics Alarms 
Jack, I hope your project goes well. As for baseball, I wonder when the money will get so big, there will be no way to resist having more machines to “assist” the umpires in making the correct calls, even balls and strikes. I have already seen a couple of bad calls at first base; I would not be surprised if steals/tags, balks and Infield Fly Rule situations become subject to replays and possibly umpire-consensus rulings.
Check-swing strike calls. I forgot to mention those. VERY important. And, “trapping” versus actual catches in the outfield…
Truth is bad calls happen all the time.. The pleasant part is when the umpire admits the call was a mistake..
A much more egregious call was made to Detroit’s Armando Galarraga in 2010, when the 21st perfect game in MLB history was ruined by umpire Jim Joyce’s horrendously botched call. Jim called the runner safe when replay showed it wasn’t even close… The correct call would ended the game. Umpire Joyce apologized as well.
Wonder what becomes the fate of these ethical umpires?
Helpful reference to the EthicsAlarms take on that situation: https://ethicsalarms.com/2010/06/03/ethics-hero-umpire-jim-joyce/
You may not know this about me but Im a Tampa fan – I spent (approx.) $3000 on rays tickets last year. This call runs me wrong from so many pet peeves…
[b]Institutional policy over-coming common sense and justice[/b]; “The call stands no matter how wrong it is!”
[b]The poor allocation of power resulting in incompetents with the ability to screw those in their trust[/b]; “Im the ref and my call is final no matter how much video evidence there is against it! So what if video evidence is good enough for court rooms where a mans life rides on it, its not good enough for baseball. [emphatic jowel shake]”
[b]Whimsical re-imagining of reality that some sports engage in[/b]; reporting the pitch as a strike when it clearly wasnt
I would also like to point out that the above are some of the same reasons that no one in America takes professional international soccer seriously. But dont even get me started on that – in all seriousness I could write a small essay on the idiocy/wrongness of international soccer. The point is that I expect better from such a respected American institution and so does everybody else.