In contrast professional baseball stands alone in the deference it pays to its rules. The baseball rulebook is considered with close to the same respect paid great works of western civilization. Baseball enthusiasts often refer to the wisdom of Abner Doubleday, and the near perfect set of rules he recorded for posterity in the summer of 1839. The fact that Doubleday may never have seen a baseball game, and that professional game was actually shaped by the play of the New York Knickerbockers in the late 1840’s does not diminish the power of the myth.[1] Like the US Constitution or the Holy Bible, Baseball’s rulebook is often considered to be a near perfect document. However, sometimes, even the rules of baseball require interpretation to fit the complexities of the modern game. These interpretations are presided over by a ‘Rules Committee’. Like the Hebrew Talmud, changes to the rule book are always merely ‘Case Book Interpretations’, which attempt to explain the meaning of the original text. When voted on by a majority of the rules committee, and ratified by the player’s association, these case book interpretations are woven into the rule book and therefore our understanding of the game.
The rule book is legalistic, it governs every conceivable aspect of major league play.[2] The scope of Baseball’s rules, define nomologically all of the physical realities of the game, from the exact distance from home plate to second base, and likewise from first base to third base (127’ 3 and 3/8”), to the maximum diameter of a baseball bat (2 and ¾”), to the minimum weight of a baseball (5 and ¼ ounces), to the types of acceptable uniforms (No part of the uniform shall include a pattern that imitates or suggests the shape of a baseball). Baseball’s rules cover nearly every conceivable playing situation, from those so common we hardly think of them, such as the rules governing a home run, to the almost inconceivably arcane, such as when a player touches a ball in play with his hat.[3]
At the center of baseball’s perfectly governed universe lies the essential rule of the game, the rule of the Strike Zone. At the core of baseball is the principle that a batter goes to home plate with the intention of hitting the baseball into the field of play. Conversely, the pitcher tries to throw the ball in such a way, that the batter will be unable to do so. In the event, that a batter fails to swing at a pitch, baseball’s rules govern the outcome. The pitcher bears a responsibility to throw the baseball into an area, the strike zone, where the player is judged to be physically capable of hitting it. If the pitcher fails to throw the ball in a place where the batter can hit it four times, the batter is given first base.
The batter bears the responsibility of swinging at pitches he is capable of hitting. If the pitcher succeeds in throwing a hittable ball three times while batter either swings and misses or fails to swing, the batter is out. Because both the pitcher and the batter want to win this interplay, the pitcher will try to throw the least ‘hittable’ hittable pitch possible, and the player will try to not swing at those ‘borderline’ pitches. From the very first batter, through virtually ever moment of the game thereafter, the game revolves around the question of what is a ‘hittable’ pitch - - a strike - - and what is not - - a ball.
To cope with this question, baseball has the strike zone rule. Simply put, any pitch thrown into the strike zone is a hittable pitch, and therefore a strike, and likewise, any pitch thrown outside of that zone is ball.
‘The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hallow beneath the knee cap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter's stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball.’ [4]
Three strikes you’re out, four balls you walk - - seems like a simple enough rule. Not so fast.
Unlike the rules governing the number of stitches in a baseball (108), or the number of outs in an inning (3), the strike zone rule is not simple to measure. When reading the rule it appears that different people could have different interpretations of what the strike zone is given the same set of perceptual inputs. This is not a trivial observation, because unlike other rules of the game, the strike zone is the essential element of the game. It can be argued that the complex interplay between the hitter and the batter based on the definition of what is and what is not a strike is all there is to the game of baseball. All other aspects of the game only add context and importance to the this central scenario.
This battle between batter and pitcher is mediated through a third party, the Umpire. It is the home plate Umpire’s responsibility to call balls and strikes, i.e. to define the strike zone, on game to game, and batter to batter basis. Disputes over the Umpire’s interpretation of the strike zone as old as the sport. It is hard to imagine a game in which an Umpire’s home plate calls are not questioned at least once by the batter, the pitcher, the fan’s or the play by play announcers who translate the experience of baseball to the television viewing and radio listening audience. Calling balls and strikes is so contentious that Major League baseball has forbidden player’s and mangers from arguing theses calls directly, as nearly every play of the game could involve some type of dispute. Still, players and managers have developed a physical language to express their displeasure over calls that don’t go their way.
While a definition of the major league strike zone has existed in one form or another for as long as the game has been professionally played, the introduction of new technology now makes the concept of a strike zone testable. With overhead cameras, that show the width of the plate, cameras mounted on the catcher’s mask, and endless media outlets to play and replay controversial decisions on the strike zone, technology has allowed players, fans, and baseball officials to view the strike zone as a distinct entity, a defined area, that a pitch either does or does not enter. For years, commentators have yelled, ‘That’s a strike’, when the Umpire has called ball, but only recently, have those same announces been able to inspect their judgement calls so closely.
With the advent of new technology, tolerance for an umpire interpretation of the strike zone has waned. Traditional baseball norms, such as different strike zones in the American and National leagues, tendencies to call the ‘wide strike’ (balls that are close to but not over the plate) during blowout games, and to give the benefit of the doubt on strike calls to the player (be it batter or pitcher) with the most experience are being challenged with greater frequency. With the ability of technology to unmask the ‘truth’ about umpires judgment calls, players, fans and, particularly baseball owners are calling for a ‘stricter enforcement of the strike zone’.[5]
That umpires interpret the strike zone differently is common knowledge to even a casual fan of the game. Generally, players do not object to this practices as long as the umpires interpretation is ‘consistent’. In the words of Rickey Henderson, a 21 year major league veteran currently playing for the New York Mets the strike zone is ‘. . . Whatever he umpire that day says it is. It’s whatever he sees or thinks he sees. As long as he’s consistent with it, its up to you as a player to adjust.’ [6]
In fact, umpires have continue to call the strike zone according to individual interpretation despite attempts by the commissioner’s office to standardize this practice. In 1996, Major League Baseball’s rule committee went as far as to redefine the strike zone, adding the space between a players knee to the hollow of the kneecap to the traditional definition of a strike. They hoped to influence umpires to call what they think is the true strike zone and therefore speed the pace of major league play.[7]
At issue is the power of an umpire to control a major league baseball game through his interpretation of the strike zone. This issue came to a head on October 12, 1997 in a playoff game between the Florida Marlins and the Atlanta Braves (two MLB franchises). In that game, Eric Gregg, the home plate umpire called what many believed to be a very wide strike zone. Highlights of the game showed Gregg calling pitches from Marlin’s pitcher Livan Hernandez seemingly a foot outside of home plate. The wide strike zone allowed, Hernandez, a rookie, to record 15 strikeouts, and opposing pitcher Greg Maddox to record 10. The combined 25 strikeouts was a record for a National league baseball playoff game. When questioned about his wide strike zone following the game, Gregg did not attempt to argue that he was calling ‘true’ strikes, but rather he argued that ‘My strike zone has been consistent on both sides for 20 years.’[8]
Many players, fans and columnists took umbrage at Gregg’s comments. They agreed that his strike zone has been consistent, but that it has been consistently wrong. The problem cited was that Gregg had more influence on the game than the players. In the words of one columnist, ‘Gregg's work behind the plate was so absurd that his impact on the outcome was at least as great as was Hernandez's.’[9] There was no question to the Atlanta Braves Players, who lost the game, that Gregg’s interpretation of the zone was the wrong one. In the words of Chipper Jones ‘I know I swung at a couple of pitches a foot outside. I asked Gregg if they were strikes and he said, 'Yeah.' I sort of chuckled at that. I'm so mad right now I can't see straight. Some people work all their lives to get here, and then to be not allowed to do your job ... it's frustrating.’[10]
By the beginning of the 1999, Major league owners had grown tired of umpires calling different strike zones based on their personal interpretations. Through the commissioner’s office they issued a memo promising the enforcement of the strike zone as defined in the rule book. [11]
According to a spokesman from Major League Baseball’s Commissioner’s office, what they are looking for is a ‘Consistent strike zone conforming to the rule book.’[12] To the commissioner’s office, there is no issue of interpretation surrounding the strike zone. The strike zone is exactly what it says it is in the rule book of major league baseball. The strike zone has exact physical dimensions that can be measured. An umpire calling a strike does so either correctly or incorrectly. It is the umpire’s responsibility to place himself in a position so that he is able to see this strike zone correctly, and make the appropriate calls. Furthermore, the strike zone is property. The concept that defines it, laid out in the official rules of major league baseball, belong to major league baseball and can only be changed or altered through a majority vote of the rules committee. Therefore, MLB owners have the authority say absolutely what the strike zone is and what it is not.
Within this context, it is clear to see why owners take issue with umpires calling games as they see it and not as the major league baseball commissioner’s office says they should see it. If the strike zone is a physical thing divorced from our perception of it, then individual interpretations of a strike zone can be judged as good or bad, based on how closely they match this physical reality.
Again, in the words of MLB’s spokesman, ‘It does not matter what a plurality of players and umpires think about interpreting the strike zone, the rule is the rule, the strike zone is the strike zone.’[13] Many players and fans agree with this perspective. In the words of Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher, Nolan Ryan speaking to the issue of how to speed up and improve major league play ‘I think if you'd just call the strike zone from what it is in the rule book that you would see pitching improve.’[14] Clearly a movement is afoot to compel umpires to call the strike zone by the rules and without interpretation.
To the umpires association, this understanding of the strike zone is naïve. The Umpires agree with the fact that a definition exists for what a strike zone is, but to the umpires, this definition requires interpretation by design. Returning to the strike zone rule, ‘The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter's stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball.’ [15] To the umpires, short of advanced robotics, or super-human sensory perception, there is no possible way to enforce this type of rule without the element of human interpretation. In fact, to the umpires, the entire controversy surrounding umpire interpretation is in large part a misnomer.
According to Robert Opalka, an attorney representing the umpire’s union, what is often mistaken for an umpire’s interpretation of a strike, is merely an umpire’s perception of a strike.[16] According to this point of view, the umpire does his best to enforce the rule as it is written in the rule book. However, the perception of the strike zone is mediated by other variables. For instance, where an umpire stands will influence the angle at which he observes the ball coming to the plate, which in turn will effect his perception of where that ball is when it crosses the plate. Because of different heights and handedness (some batters hit from the right side of the plate, some from the left, some pitchers throw with the left hand, some with their right) of major league players it is not possible for an umpire to observe the ball from the same angle for each pitch.
Perceptual differences are magnified between umpires, as different umpires learn and become habituated to standing in different place to observe the pitch. Some umpires like to crouch right behind the catcher’s ear, others like to stand upright. Further problems are created from the variety of way player can choose to stand t the plate, and still more difficulties pitches are created but the differences in arm angles of the pitcher throwing the ball. Again, in the words of Rickey Henderson ‘Say I’m in my deep crouch . . . then my high strike is right about here. If I straighten up, even a little, my strike zone changes. Then the high strike is right over the belt.’ [17]
A player with three balls and no strikes on him, may crouch a little lower, technically decreasing the size of his strike zone, in order to more easily be awarded a free base. A pitcher might develop a pitch such as a knuckle ball whose movement is so unpredictable and erratic that even the catcher can not consistently field it. Still an umpire is expected to make judgements consistent with the major league rule book about where that pitch was during the micro-second it crossed home plate. To the major league umpires who define the strike zone for a living, determining what is and is not a strike is more of an art than a science. In the opinion of Mr. Opalka, umpires do not interpret the strike zone based on players reputations, a desire for quicker play, or a bias which favors pitchers or hitters. Strike zones do change from umpire to umpire and even at times inning to inning, and always from batter to batter, but these differences are created entirely by perceptual problems not normative interpretation.
Umpires are critical realists in their opinion of the strike zone. They acknowledge conceptually that strike zones may have physical dimensions, but they also acknowledge that these true dimensions are only knowable through the mediator of perception. Because there are so many variables involved in determining weather a pitch is a ball or a strike, a ‘true’ strike zone is only an idea, and as such, is only relevant as a guideline for the pitch by pitch judgments that turn actual physical phenomena (the location of a pitched ball as it crosses home plate) into meaningful human concepts (the calling of balls and strikes). To the umpires, the problem is not that there is no strike zone, but that we can only know the strike zone through human interpretation. Attempts to hold these interpretations up to ‘reality’, as manifested by instant replay’s and overhead cameras emphasize one element of the strike zone, specifically the width of the plate, while ignoring the other elements such as the height and movement of the ball, the stance of the batter, the optical illusions create by late afternoon light quality that complicate the effort of calling balls and strikes.
To Opalka, umpires can and do routinely call the ‘ideal’ strike - - a pitch thrown thigh high, strait down the middle of the plate, with no movement - - ‘correctly’. However, this pitch is rarely thrown, as not only is it ‘ideal’ for the umpire to perceive, it is also ‘ideal’ for the batter to hit. Instead, the game of baseball is game of inches, where pitchers and hitters routinely try to test the boundaries of the strike zone. Pitches hope to nick the edge of the zone rather than locate the ball clearly within it, and batters hope to swing only at pitches comfortably in the heart of the zone. In such a game of give and take, consistent interpretation of the strike zone is more important than abiding to a vague notion of an ‘ideal’ zone.
According to the umpires, human judgements of the location of a small white ball traveling 90 to 100 miles per hour, with movement as it crosses the plate, is and can only ever be interpretive. If every one of these interpretations is held again a nomic standard, some will inevitably appear to be ‘wrong’. However, in a game in which on average, a batter hits successfully only 26% of the time, is it realistic to insist that umpires must interpret the strike zone rule with 100% accuracy? [18]
In one respect the Major League Player’s Association (MLPA) agrees with the Umpires Association. According to Gene Orza, attorney/representative for the MLPA , ‘Umpires stand a certain way. The way they stand can determine a different strike zone for each batter.’[19] In other respects, Orza’s positions are consistent with that of the owners, such as when he explained that the strike zone is intellectual property requiring the approval of the MLPA to alter. Orza strongly rejects the owners innuendo that umpires call strikes according to the reputation of the batter or pitcher, calling such ideas ‘Media Horseshit’.[20] However to Orza, the entire argument of the owners and the umpires misses the point of what the strike zone really is.
Although the strike zone is the fundamental rule of the game of baseball ‘Like the carburetor of car, through which everything runs through’, the notion that there is such a thing as a ‘true’ strike zone is absurd. Baseball is a social construction, a game. Without the game, and more importantly the people who play the game, no strike zone exists. The owner’s position that the strike zone has naturalistic properties that correspond to an ideal version of a strike zone, deifies a human creation. The strike zone is what we agree the strike zone is and nothing more. Orza feigned disbelief over why someone would even be interested in the strike zone. ‘Baseball is a child’s game, an entertainment diversion. Why would an academic be interested in this?’[21]
However, Orza’s beliefs belie his innocent question. To Orza, baseball is an industry first, and a game only as the game supports this industry. The baseball industry, is made up of a complex web of semi-autonomous business associations. Teams are owner/player cooperatives that compete with each other. This competition is mediated by the umpires, and the successful mediation of it creates an entertainment product. Though players and owners cooperate with each other on the level of their particular team, at a more fundamental level, players and owners compete in complex financial battles over the rewards of the industry. The success of the industry depends to a large extent on umpires who are independent of both the players and the owners. Though the umpires do not reap significant financial rewards from the system, they do exert power over the health of the game. No one group, owners, players or umpires, can survive independently of the others, and tension over who controls the industry and its rewards is pervasive.
The long term financial battles of the game have been fought over the course of decades. Through collective bargaining, strikes and lockouts, owners and players attempt to safeguard their payment, status, bargaining leverage, and autonomy. Each new settlement yields winners and losers. During the life of a negotiated collective bargaining agreement, losers of the last round will often try to manipulate the rules of play to gain advantages they failed to achieve in negotiations. Since the 1960’s, MLB’s owners have consistently yielded money and power to the players. In this respect, the owners can be called the losers of baseball’s labor battles. While a naïve observer might view the argument over the strike zone as pertaining to some altruistic desire by the owners to improve the quality of game of baseball, to Orza, a cursory critical view exposes the power dynamics of subtle changes to the strike zone rule.
“The strike zone is baseball.’ Orza argues, but by that he does not mean that the strike zone truly is. Rather the size of the strike zone, the guidelines of its interpretation, and the enforcement of that interpretation have a ‘rippling effect’ on all other aspects of the game. ‘The strike zone effects the number of pitches thrown, the number of pitches thrown effect the rate of arm injuries, the rate of arm injuries effects changes on baseball’s forty man rosters, changes in the rosters have impacts of careers, changes in career paths have implications for payrolls, its endless.’[22]
When viewed through Orza’s lens the owner’s desire for a ‘true’ strike zone relates directly to their business interests. A nomic strike which is only achievable through automation of the calling of balls and strikes, would limit the owners dependence on the umpires union. The owners may be trying to assert control over the aspects of baseball play, to counteract their loss of control over the aspects of baseball financing. The owners insistence a more consistent, less interpretive strike zone may be also a reaction to a trend of growing umpire independence. [23] [24] In any event, the answers to questions about what the strike zone is do not like in empirical observation of a physical strike zone. To ask whether there is such a thing as one ‘true’ strike zone is to ask the wrong question. The right question is to ask if there were a true strike zone, whose interests would it benefit, and whose would it harm.
One can only make sense of the owners desire for a ‘true’ strike zone, through coherent interpretative explanations of the effect of such a zone on the economic system of major league baseball. To view it as merely a rule change that will influence only the ‘play of the game’ is to mystify and distort the importance and the impact changes to the strike zone have on the economic system of baseball.
Viewed in this context the arguments of the owners, the players and the umpires all seem false in fundamental ways. It is true that upon examination, the owners ostensibly altruistic motives for altering the strike zone appear tainted. At the same time the players and the umpires contention that interpretation of the strike zone is solely a function of perceptional differences created by where the umpire stands and the angle of the pitched ball seem equally as absurd.
Fans recognize the core truths to the owner’s argument. Umpires do tend to call pitches based on a function of the pitcher’s and the batter’s reputations. Umpires do react to negative feedback from the players, the mangers and the fans. Umpires do call ‘their strike zones’ according to their interpretation of how baseball should be played. In the words of one fan ‘There is a lot more than just interpretation. Big time pitchers get a wider strike zone.’[25] In the words of another ‘The issue is not that there is interpretation, the issue is the fact that this interpretation is levied unfairly.’[26]
What is so difficult for owners, umpires and players to accept is the reality that the calling of a strike is controlled by no one individual, that it is in essence a community event. Fan’s players and umpires have unconscious, predetermined expectations of how players will fare. It is difficult if not impossible to divorce oneself from these expectations, particularly when player and fan reaction, behaviorally reinforces expectations from play to play. For instance a famous and successful pitcher is expected to throw strikes, while a rookie with no reputation, generally is not. When a ‘boarder-line’ pitch is thrown by a veteran, the fan’s, the players and the umpires expect that pitch to be a strike. The expectation of the strike, creates the strike. The reaction to the first pitch be it negative or positive may influences the call on the next pitch.
Even, if an umpire decides to error on the side of impatiality, and strive to enforce what the owners define as a ‘true’ strike, this effort to be impartial, creates new biases and interpretations. Where as before, the umpire might error on the side of the veteran, now in order to appear impartial, he may error on the side of rookie. Likewise, game situations may alter the calling of balls and strikes. It is difficult to imagine how a boarderline pitch with two outs left in the bottom of the ninth inning of the World Series, could possibly be judged in the same way as a meaningless pitch in spring training. One interpretation may have a season depending on it, whereas the other means nothing. Is it reasonable to conclude that the difference between the way these balls are called is only an issue of perception?
Owners wish to see umpire interpretation as favoring veteran players. To them, if the strike zone were standardized, rookie players would have the same chance to succeed as veteran players. Following this logic, teams could staff their rosters with inexpensive rookie players and be still reasonably competitive. If this were true, standardizing the strike zone would allow the owners to regain some control over their payrolls that they have lost over the past thirty years. Furthermore, a desire to standardize the strike zone is legitimate, as the strike zone is naturalistic not relativistic. The real strike zone is standardized, so it is only fair that the called strike zone be standardized as well. For owners to accept the idea that a strike zone is only a relative concept, is for them to relinquish the hope that they can regain control of the game through standardizing play.
Umpires wish to see the strike zone as merely an estimation problem. Their ability to call it ‘correctly’ is a function of their tools of measurement, such as their stance and lines of sight. Although there may be a true strike zone, given the mediated nature of perception, umpires can not be expected to always agree on what that is. The real strike zone is largely unknowable, and therefore while it may exist, its existence is irrelevant to baseball. To umpires the debate over the interpretation of the strike zone is all a misunderstanding. Umpires don’t personalize the strike zone. It may appear that way, as different umpires do call different strike zones, but these differences are only a function of perception, not opinion. In an umpire’s reality, they do their best under difficult conditions to create a definition of the strike zone that is coherent to the context of a particular game. Because calling balls and strikes in real games is complicated, that task will always appear idiosyncratic, but this idiosyncracy should not be misconstrued as personalization. Umpires can not believe that they call balls and strikes based on player’s reputation because to do so would invalidate their role as the impartial arbitrator of the major league game.
For the players, arguments about a ‘true’ strike zone are absurd. What we call the strike zone is only our collective agreement to value normic standards and rules about where a ball is thrown. They view the owners attempt to call the strike zone a naturalistic entity, as an illegitimate attempt to win labor disputes that they failed to win at the bargaining table, through manipulation the rule book. However, they do not seem particularly disturbed by this attempt, as they view it as futile. The players, at least at the level of the union, accept the umpire’s claim that differences in the zone are function of perception. As games are played, championships are won, fans enjoy the game and money is made from this enjoyment, it is clear that the fact that umpires perceive the strike zone differently does not de-legitamize the normic acceptance of the strike zone. To argue that a preferential strike zone creates stars is to ignore the enormous and spectacular talents of star ball players that transcend multiple different interpretations of the zone. The high salaries of players are dependent on their special ability to perform in a non-preferential environment. If the only thing that determined their performance was a favorable strike zone, then they would lose their claim that their special skills is what fans pay to see.
In the context of a coherent theory it is absurd to suggest that the only thing that separates Roger Clemens, an exceptional player from Bobby Munoz, a poor player, is a preferential strike zone. Clearly, the players contention that Clemens possesses outstanding ability that separates him from the pack is unassailable. Yet it is not necessary to argue such a point. One may simply say that as good as Clemens is, a preferential strike zone can only make him better. It is coherent to argue that a preferential strike zone exists, and this zone makes good players better, and still argue that being a great player is not simply a function of this preferential zone.
Furthermore, fan’s collude in the creation of our preferential zones. We want our star players to succeed, particularly when we pay money to see them. It is a rare baseball fan that did not want to see Mark McGuire break Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1998. Can player’s and umpires really argue that McGuire did not get the benefit of the doubt on many calls of balls and strikes? Conversely, can owners argue that McGuire hit his 70 home runs because of a preferential strike zone? Ultimately it is not what kind of strike zone a player gets, but what that player does with the zone they recieve.
Players, owners and umpires need to define the strike zone in ways that support their view of the game. Owners want to see the strike zone as yet another example of how the pure game of baseball has been distorted, to serve an ego-centric player oriented game. Players need to see their success as entirely divorced from unfair advantages that would pollute their achievements. Umpires need to see their calling of balls and strikes as fair and impartial, to see it otherwise would be to admit that they fail to achieve the ideal standards of their job.
An argument that a true and naturalistic strike zone can exist and should be abided by, is in conflict with the realities of how humans umpires can actually call a strike zone. Whether or not a true strike zone exists, its existence has little to do with how the zone can called be called in practice. Rarely, would an umpire consciously calls strikes to preferentially favor a particular player, yet subconsciously, preference effects perhaps every call he makes. Players achieve because of their great skills not preferential treatment. Yet their great skills help them to get preferential treatment that then help them to achieve even more. Such is the way the game of baseball has always been played. To suggest, that strikes be called in a manner that is not biased, even subconsciously, by player reputation and circumstance is to suggest a different game altogether. It is a view that can not be reconciled with the view of the strike zone held by the umpires and the players.
[1] Ward, Geoffrey, Burns, Ken ‘Baseball: An Illustrated History’ Knopf, New York, 1994.
[2] http://www.majorleaguebaseball.com/
[3] Each runner including the batter runner may, without liability to be put
out, advance three bases, if a fielder deliberately touches a fair ball with his cap,
mask or any part of his uniform detached from its proper place on his
person. The ball is in play and the batter may advance to home base at his
peril.
[4] OFFICIAL BASEBALL RULES ©1998 by the Commissioner of Baseball. http://www.majorleaguebaseball.com/
[5] Araton, Harvey ‘Any way One tosses It, No Strike Zone Can Be Treated Equally’ The New York Times, pg. C23, 2/25/1999.
[6] Ibid.
[7] ‘Strike zone redefined to help pitchers’ ESPN SportsZone. 1996. http://espn.go.com/editors/mlb/features/0223zone.html
[8] ‘MARLINS 2, Braves 1’ Associated Press, 10/12/1997.
[9] Reusse, Patrick ‘The ump becomes a player’ Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, 10/12/1997.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Klapisch, Bob ‘Strike one isn’t baseball’s biggest problem’ ESPN.com 1999.
http://espn.go.com/premium/mlb/columns/klapisch/01133311.html
[12] Personal interview with an unnamed press spokesman for Major League Baseball’s Commissioner’s office. 2/25/1999.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Testa, Karen ‘Ryan sees weakness in current pitching’ Baseball Weekly, 3/24/1998.
[15] OFFICIAL BASEBALL RULES ©1998 by the Commissioner of Baseball. http://www.majorleaguebaseball.com/
[16] Personal interview with Robert Opalka, Chief Attorney for the Major League Baseball Umpire’s Association. 3/2/99
[17] Araton, Harvey ‘Any way One tosses It, No Strike Zone Can Be Treated Equally’ The New York Times, pg. C23, 2/25/1999.
[18] Personal interview with Robert Opalka, Chief Attorney for the Major League Baseball Umpire’s Association. 3/2/99.
[19] Personal interview with Gene Orza, Attorney for the Major League Baseball Player’s Association. 3/2/99. Orza is the number two official for the MLB Player’s association. In general he comments on issues relation to the playing of the game, while the chief union organizer, Donald Fehr concentrates on collective bargaining issues.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] ibid.
[23] Ginsburg, David ‘Alomar shadowed all spring by spitting incident’ The Detroit News 3/28/97. http://www.detnews.com/1997/sports/9703/28/03280078.htm
[24] ‘Umpires lose suit for more pay’ Associated Press. 11/30/1998. http://cnnsi.com/baseball/mlb/news/1998/11/30/umpires_lawsuit/index.html
[25] Interview with Ken Ricciardi 2/26/1999. Mister Ricciardi is an intern at the sports desk of the New York Post.
[26] Interview with Lincoln Mitchell 3/6/1999. Dr. Mitchell is a political Scientist at Columbia University.
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