[This is part of a series exploring the Baseball Tarot. If you would like to prompt for a part of the game or a card from the deck, there's very little space left. Leave a comment with a prompt if you want in. All other comments are still welcome, of course.]
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onyxlynx, who could probably feed prompts all day and all night.
If you ever want to know how difficult a sport really is to play, learn how to officiate it. Being an official in any given sport means all the fun of knowing the rules in intimate detail and their application, but it also means having to look for violations of those rules and knowing the penalties for those violations. The good thing is, all sports and games that have officials invest in them the ability to make judgment calls about various states of play, according to the rules, and used to specifically exempt many of those calls from being reviewed or disputed, with varying penalties that could be assessed for such an action. In these days of video replay in the major sports, new rules have had to be crafted to determine what sort of things could conceivably be reviewed, and how many times a manager or coach may request reviews. For example, the calling of balls and strikes is non-reviewable during the game (although umpires will be evaluated by their governing body based on how accurately, according to a machine, they call balls and strikes), but the question of whether a ball is a home run or not is reviewable by video. (And before we get to video, it's actually possible for umpires to ask for help from each other in determining the correct call, or for the home plate umpire to overrule a base play, if the home plate umpire can see something the base umpire can't - like a ball that is not in a glove that tagged an opponent.)
And then there are the people. On the lowest level of that kind of thing are players that will give you a hard time for enforcing the rules, telling you it's not what it looks like, and that the person on the other team was doing something way worse. This is more evident in sports like football, basketball, and ice hockey, where some part of the game involves direct contact with opponents and there are a multitude of fouls that have to be looked for and called every play. But baseball has a few - I once had a batter who launched immediately into how the first baseman had never made contact with first base while they had the ball, which I was aware of - since I had to look at the base and wait for feet to make the call about whether the batter was safe there. The was an audible "Thank you!" at the safe call, which seemed to be an indication that they had dealt with officials that weren't up to par. Considering this was for the intramural slow-pitch leagues and this particular team was known for playing very seriously in an otherwise fun environment (and that sometimes had cameos from other varsity sports), they probably felt justified. And there will be players who dispute calls, sometimes very vocally, sometimes with all sorts of colorful language, in an attempt to get the call overturned or done in their favor. In Major League Baseball (and actually, in all leagues), players that protest calls to much, or delay the game, or touch the umpire while doing so are likely to be ejected from the game. Which is why you will often see coaches and managers hustle the player back to the dugout that has an issue, and then the manager will go out and have a conversation with the umpires about what happened. At the youngest levels of play, the umpire is often the other person, in addition to the coach, who has to teach players about the game. Explanations come from the coach, but the calls come from the umpire.
Then there are the fans, who will give you the very best in invective when you're ruling against them and will sing your praises when you're with them. This does not necessarily mean they know what they are talking about - while in the stands during university, watching a softball game, on a close bunt, the fielder picked up the ball while the ball was in foul territory to throw down to first base. The umpire made the correct call - foul ball - and the stands erupted. You see, the body of the fielder was clearly in fair territory and so it looked for all the world the umpire had just robbed the home team of an out from excellent fielding. The fans were focusing on the wrong thing - the bigger thing, the obvious thing, the thing that would make sense, when the ball was the important thing. Having been on the end of that kind of thing, I felt the need to say what an excellent call it was. After the furor died down some, once of the other fans who had been vocal about their displeasure asked me what was going on, and so I explained to him the rule, and after all was done, he vocally apologized to the umpire. Now, the umpires didn't need the apology - they made the right call and knew it. But it was nice for them, I hope, to have someone apologize for being wrong about the call. Without the knowledge gained by either umpiring or playing, the situation would have remained and the fans would have had no knowledge added to them.
The people who will most get on an umpire's case about anything, though, are the managers and coaches. Some of this is because the managers and coaches are the most "expendable" people on the team, not being strictly necessary to play the game, so if a dispute is going to get up to the ejection level, better to lose the manager than a position player who could directly affect the outcome of the game. Some of it is because managers and coaches are the people most likely to have the encyclopedic knowledge of the rules and are most on the lookout for irregularities or violations of the rules that players trying to make plays may not be aware of, so they will raise issues not normally seen. And there are some coaches who want to try and portray the umpires as incompetents, for whatever reason, so they will ask things like what the count of balls and strikes is and pooh-pooh any umpire who had to look at a counting tool to ensure they have the right numbers. (To counter this, many counting tools are ridged on their outside surfaces such that an umpire just has to feel the appropriate dials' patterns and can relay the count without having to look. I don't honestly know what a manager hopes to gain from doing this - if they are trying to convince their players that is just bad officiating as to why they are losing, that seems to be more of an incentive not to try.
Additionally, all levels of the same highly frown on questioning the integrity of the umpire's judgment, but especially at the learning levels, leagues do not want bad habits or bad examples happening for young men and women to emulate. I umpired summer fast-pitch softball at the learning levels, and there was only one game where I had to stop the game and declare a forfeit, and it was because the coach for one of the teams started in on my judgment of balls and strikes, as well as outs, early and often. Not the players, which was good for them, but the coach was taking to her players, saying things like "Don't worry, the umpire doesn't know what he's doing." and making very loud remarks about my decisions regarding the strike zone. Well, I asked the coach to not say those things in front of the players, as it sets a bad example and encourages the players to do the same, and I reminded the coach that matters such as balls and strikes were things that could not be argued without consequences. It didn't stop, so on time two of taking with the coach, I set the ultimatum that the next incident would result in their dismissal from the game. It still didn't stop, so I made good on my threat and told the coach she had to leave the playing field, beyond the outfield fence, and remain there for the remainder of the game, or within a few minutes, the game would be forfeit. (Those are the rules. Any ejected player, coach, or manager must leave the playing field and team dugout within a reasonable time or forfeit the game to their opponents). The coach had no intention of leaving, still solidly on the line that I was incompetent, and so the game was recorded as a forfeit. I made my apologies to the players for stopping the game, explained why they could not continue, and left the playing field. The follow-up call from the head of officials for the league that night was brief, asking for the details and the reason for the game ending the way it did, and the head of officials mentioned they had received comments from the parents watching the game about the conduct of the dismissed coach and the reflect they had for the professionalism of the umpire. So, that was a nice outside perspective to validate what I was experiencing. Not that it was a question, and the head of officials stressed that it wasn't a question, but it didn't hurt to have that validation.
These days, in these professional leagues, while you might still see some hat-stomping and dirt-kicking, conversations between managers and umpires are usually going to appear civil on both sides, because television cameras are watching. I appreciate much more a manager like Jim Leyland, when he was with Detroit, who would jog out, for all visible purposes, have a friendly conversation with the umpire that seemed to be more of the demeanor of "Tell me what happened there, because it looked different from my perspective", would get the explanation, point out what he wanted to point out, and might nod and thank the umpire, and then would jog back to the dugout. Being civil with an umpire really does help. It won't necessarily change the call, but it will make the umpire less likely to give you the boot if you come back out about something else later on.
The Tarot Card associated here is The Umpire, thankfully, and their associations are much the same as in the actual game - an independent arbiter who shows no favor to either team, but interprets and applies the rules of the game to the game unfolding in front of them. If the Umpire is in your reading, it's time to get an opinion from someone you trust to tell you exactly how it is, with no spin and no attempts to shy away from the truth. Those people are often rare in your life, and if you've got one, hold on to them (even if their honesty stings when you receive it). If you're being asked to be the Umpire for something, the card is a reminder to be fair and to interpret according to the rules laid out in front of you. You may have a desired outcome - if you can make it work within the rules, great, but don't bend the rules to fit your outcome. Everyone else involves also knows the rules and will come after you if you're not within their structures.
The bad side to the Umpire is favoritism, which is death to any official's career. If the field is being tilted to one team's advantage and the officials are not fixing it, or worse, are actively collaborating to make this happen, someone with oversight abilities over the officials needs to know, and quickly, so that the corruption can be rooted out immediately and better controls put in place to prevent this from happening again. For some institutions, the task will appear Sisyphean, but eventually equality and fairness win out. If for no other reason than because we prefer those lies to other lies.
As Sir Terry put it in Hogfather:
Also for
onyxlynx, who could probably feed prompts all day and all night.If you ever want to know how difficult a sport really is to play, learn how to officiate it. Being an official in any given sport means all the fun of knowing the rules in intimate detail and their application, but it also means having to look for violations of those rules and knowing the penalties for those violations. The good thing is, all sports and games that have officials invest in them the ability to make judgment calls about various states of play, according to the rules, and used to specifically exempt many of those calls from being reviewed or disputed, with varying penalties that could be assessed for such an action. In these days of video replay in the major sports, new rules have had to be crafted to determine what sort of things could conceivably be reviewed, and how many times a manager or coach may request reviews. For example, the calling of balls and strikes is non-reviewable during the game (although umpires will be evaluated by their governing body based on how accurately, according to a machine, they call balls and strikes), but the question of whether a ball is a home run or not is reviewable by video. (And before we get to video, it's actually possible for umpires to ask for help from each other in determining the correct call, or for the home plate umpire to overrule a base play, if the home plate umpire can see something the base umpire can't - like a ball that is not in a glove that tagged an opponent.)
And then there are the people. On the lowest level of that kind of thing are players that will give you a hard time for enforcing the rules, telling you it's not what it looks like, and that the person on the other team was doing something way worse. This is more evident in sports like football, basketball, and ice hockey, where some part of the game involves direct contact with opponents and there are a multitude of fouls that have to be looked for and called every play. But baseball has a few - I once had a batter who launched immediately into how the first baseman had never made contact with first base while they had the ball, which I was aware of - since I had to look at the base and wait for feet to make the call about whether the batter was safe there. The was an audible "Thank you!" at the safe call, which seemed to be an indication that they had dealt with officials that weren't up to par. Considering this was for the intramural slow-pitch leagues and this particular team was known for playing very seriously in an otherwise fun environment (and that sometimes had cameos from other varsity sports), they probably felt justified. And there will be players who dispute calls, sometimes very vocally, sometimes with all sorts of colorful language, in an attempt to get the call overturned or done in their favor. In Major League Baseball (and actually, in all leagues), players that protest calls to much, or delay the game, or touch the umpire while doing so are likely to be ejected from the game. Which is why you will often see coaches and managers hustle the player back to the dugout that has an issue, and then the manager will go out and have a conversation with the umpires about what happened. At the youngest levels of play, the umpire is often the other person, in addition to the coach, who has to teach players about the game. Explanations come from the coach, but the calls come from the umpire.
Then there are the fans, who will give you the very best in invective when you're ruling against them and will sing your praises when you're with them. This does not necessarily mean they know what they are talking about - while in the stands during university, watching a softball game, on a close bunt, the fielder picked up the ball while the ball was in foul territory to throw down to first base. The umpire made the correct call - foul ball - and the stands erupted. You see, the body of the fielder was clearly in fair territory and so it looked for all the world the umpire had just robbed the home team of an out from excellent fielding. The fans were focusing on the wrong thing - the bigger thing, the obvious thing, the thing that would make sense, when the ball was the important thing. Having been on the end of that kind of thing, I felt the need to say what an excellent call it was. After the furor died down some, once of the other fans who had been vocal about their displeasure asked me what was going on, and so I explained to him the rule, and after all was done, he vocally apologized to the umpire. Now, the umpires didn't need the apology - they made the right call and knew it. But it was nice for them, I hope, to have someone apologize for being wrong about the call. Without the knowledge gained by either umpiring or playing, the situation would have remained and the fans would have had no knowledge added to them.
The people who will most get on an umpire's case about anything, though, are the managers and coaches. Some of this is because the managers and coaches are the most "expendable" people on the team, not being strictly necessary to play the game, so if a dispute is going to get up to the ejection level, better to lose the manager than a position player who could directly affect the outcome of the game. Some of it is because managers and coaches are the people most likely to have the encyclopedic knowledge of the rules and are most on the lookout for irregularities or violations of the rules that players trying to make plays may not be aware of, so they will raise issues not normally seen. And there are some coaches who want to try and portray the umpires as incompetents, for whatever reason, so they will ask things like what the count of balls and strikes is and pooh-pooh any umpire who had to look at a counting tool to ensure they have the right numbers. (To counter this, many counting tools are ridged on their outside surfaces such that an umpire just has to feel the appropriate dials' patterns and can relay the count without having to look. I don't honestly know what a manager hopes to gain from doing this - if they are trying to convince their players that is just bad officiating as to why they are losing, that seems to be more of an incentive not to try.
Additionally, all levels of the same highly frown on questioning the integrity of the umpire's judgment, but especially at the learning levels, leagues do not want bad habits or bad examples happening for young men and women to emulate. I umpired summer fast-pitch softball at the learning levels, and there was only one game where I had to stop the game and declare a forfeit, and it was because the coach for one of the teams started in on my judgment of balls and strikes, as well as outs, early and often. Not the players, which was good for them, but the coach was taking to her players, saying things like "Don't worry, the umpire doesn't know what he's doing." and making very loud remarks about my decisions regarding the strike zone. Well, I asked the coach to not say those things in front of the players, as it sets a bad example and encourages the players to do the same, and I reminded the coach that matters such as balls and strikes were things that could not be argued without consequences. It didn't stop, so on time two of taking with the coach, I set the ultimatum that the next incident would result in their dismissal from the game. It still didn't stop, so I made good on my threat and told the coach she had to leave the playing field, beyond the outfield fence, and remain there for the remainder of the game, or within a few minutes, the game would be forfeit. (Those are the rules. Any ejected player, coach, or manager must leave the playing field and team dugout within a reasonable time or forfeit the game to their opponents). The coach had no intention of leaving, still solidly on the line that I was incompetent, and so the game was recorded as a forfeit. I made my apologies to the players for stopping the game, explained why they could not continue, and left the playing field. The follow-up call from the head of officials for the league that night was brief, asking for the details and the reason for the game ending the way it did, and the head of officials mentioned they had received comments from the parents watching the game about the conduct of the dismissed coach and the reflect they had for the professionalism of the umpire. So, that was a nice outside perspective to validate what I was experiencing. Not that it was a question, and the head of officials stressed that it wasn't a question, but it didn't hurt to have that validation.
These days, in these professional leagues, while you might still see some hat-stomping and dirt-kicking, conversations between managers and umpires are usually going to appear civil on both sides, because television cameras are watching. I appreciate much more a manager like Jim Leyland, when he was with Detroit, who would jog out, for all visible purposes, have a friendly conversation with the umpire that seemed to be more of the demeanor of "Tell me what happened there, because it looked different from my perspective", would get the explanation, point out what he wanted to point out, and might nod and thank the umpire, and then would jog back to the dugout. Being civil with an umpire really does help. It won't necessarily change the call, but it will make the umpire less likely to give you the boot if you come back out about something else later on.
The Tarot Card associated here is The Umpire, thankfully, and their associations are much the same as in the actual game - an independent arbiter who shows no favor to either team, but interprets and applies the rules of the game to the game unfolding in front of them. If the Umpire is in your reading, it's time to get an opinion from someone you trust to tell you exactly how it is, with no spin and no attempts to shy away from the truth. Those people are often rare in your life, and if you've got one, hold on to them (even if their honesty stings when you receive it). If you're being asked to be the Umpire for something, the card is a reminder to be fair and to interpret according to the rules laid out in front of you. You may have a desired outcome - if you can make it work within the rules, great, but don't bend the rules to fit your outcome. Everyone else involves also knows the rules and will come after you if you're not within their structures.
The bad side to the Umpire is favoritism, which is death to any official's career. If the field is being tilted to one team's advantage and the officials are not fixing it, or worse, are actively collaborating to make this happen, someone with oversight abilities over the officials needs to know, and quickly, so that the corruption can be rooted out immediately and better controls put in place to prevent this from happening again. For some institutions, the task will appear Sisyphean, but eventually equality and fairness win out. If for no other reason than because we prefer those lies to other lies.
As Sir Terry put it in Hogfather:
"All right," said Susan, "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need ... fantasies to make life bearable."No. Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers?"Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
"So we can believe the big ones?"Yes. Justice. Duty. Mercy. That sort of thing.
"They're not the same at all!"Really? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet you act, like there was some sort of rightness in the universe by which it may be judged:
"Yes. But people have got to believe that or what's the point?"My point exactly.
