Tip to Redlegnation, Hardball times has a fascinating look at umpiring.
It’s as clear as day: These umpires are a bunch of softies. They see a pitcher struggling to put the ball over and they go all Gandhi on us, giving the pitcher an an extra chunk of strike zone to work with when the count reaches 3-0.
And when the batter becomes the underdog, when the count goes to 0-2? Why, the hearts of our merciful arbiters simply turn to mush: They can’t help pulling for the poor batter as he chokes up on the bat, hoping to make some kind of contact. Who knew the umps were such empathetic characters?
I have always assumed that the umps call a different strike zone based on count only on the extreme pitchers’ and hitters’ counts. Sure, we see a big difference between 3-0 and 0-2, but the strike zone is more or less constant for the other counts, yes? Well, no.
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