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Hitting a baseball is among the hardest tasks in sports. The batter has less than a second to decide to swing and the umpire seems all too eager to call a strike when the hitter takes a close pitch. While this is no doubt an umpire’s job, there are instances where an umpire can take his job too far and ultimately upset the course of the game by becoming part of the game.
One instance where an umpire can change the course of the game is by inventing problems that don’t exist. For instance, a pitcher beans a hitter and the umpire issues warnings to both teams. If another pitcher hits a batter, even by accident, that pitcher gets ejected from the game as well as his manager as it’s assumed he called for the hit batter. In addition to potentially losing players or managers critical to the game, ejections by the umpire result in pitchers who no longer throw inside pitches. The pitcher doesn’t want an ejection from the game for an accidental hit by pitch so they pitch consistently to the outer part of the plate allowing hitters to sit on the outside pitch.
Umpires who step towards players or the pitcher’s mound can also disrupt a game. The other people in the park don’t know whats transpired between the umpire and player but the visual of the umpire moving towards them can result in a player feeling shown up. In this instance, yelling escalates and soon more players get ejected out of the game.
