Of Judges and Umpires
During his confirmation hearings, John Roberts likened the role of the courts to that of baseball umpires, noting that umpires play a limited role to ensure that everyone else plays by the rules, adding that “[n]obody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.” As a judicial conservative (albeit a proud non-member of the Coalition of the Illin’, at least for now), I thought that analogy made a lot of sense … until last night, when a real baseball umpire, Doug Eddings, proved himself to be the Lewis Powell of baseball, legislating from the field to break a 1-1 impasse in the bottom of the 9th and declare Chicago the winner by umpirical fiat. Between the call itself, and the fact that all of his fellow umpires reflexively joined his unsupportable opinion without dissent, I’m not so sure I like Chief Justice’s umpire analogy after all. If more umps were as bumbling and incompetent as Eddings, people probably would pay money to go watch the ump make an ass of himself. I know I would. In fact, I know I will be watching this ump closely when I attend Games 4 and 5 later this week, and I don’t think I’ll be alone in that.
Meanwhile, sportscaster/blogger Brooks Melchior (h/t: Kevin Roderick) offers evidence that Edding got his job as a result of cronyism rather than merit. He doesn’t blame George Bush for this particular appointment, which is nice, but it did get me to thinking: if I were a Miers basher rather than a fence-sitter in the present controversy, I’d skip all that boring inside “baseball” about Lewis Powell, Potter Stewart, Harry Blackmun, Earl Warren Burger and the rest, and really go inside baseball by comparing her to Doug Eddings, instead. There’s only one problem with the analogy: Eddings may have moved up in the ranks too far or too quickly, but unlike Miers, he did begin his career in the usual monestary, the minor leagues, before being promoted to the Supreme Soviet of Baseball.
October 14th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
One reason I didn’t like Roberts viewing himself as an umpire is that every umpire has his own version of what is and what isn’t a strike… just as every judge seems to have their own view of what is and what isn’t constitutional.
Umpires are also notoriously inconsistent when calling balls and strikes, they seem to make things up as they go along…. just like judges who can follow precedent or discard it depending on whether it supports or doesn’t support the position they want to take.
Baseball umpires also are very short-tempered when being criticized by others (look how fast the umpiring establishment rallied around Edding after he made a mess of things, and how fast players and managers questioning calls can get tossed from the game)…. just like judges who don’t cotton to us common folk criticizing them for their mucking things up.
And you don’t need to pay more money to see overweight guys with inflated egos make an ass of themselves… just look around you while you’re at the games next week…. you’ll see plenty of them.
October 15th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
If there were any lingering doubts about what happened in game 2, I think tonight’s game has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that this series has featured the worst officiating in postseason history. If the White Sox win the World Series, they’d better give some rings to the ALCS umpiring crew.
October 15th, 2005 at 11:11 pm
The best umpires are those that, at the end of the game, you didn’t even realize were there.
Same goes for judges.
October 15th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
Sean: Good Lord, you’re right. Although I do have to quibble with the bit about the fans having booed the umps generally. They didn’t. They booed Doug Eddings in a big way, and were customarily silent vis a vis the rest. From our seat just to the right of right field, it looked like Eddings (who was in left field, literally as well as figuratively) had extra security.
Unfortunately, they don’t show instant replays in the stands, so I was “blissfully” ignorant of how bad these calls were. From our seats they looked close, but not unambiguously bad – unlike the Angels’ playing, which was.
October 15th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
Chris: the best umpires don’t work for the American League. Same goes for American courts.