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America Could Use More Umpires: Will

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 9, 2009 10:01 AM CDT

(Newser) – Umpiring is often a thankless job. In Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, they’re typically beheaded as soon as they make a controversial call, and modern fans routinely abuse them and question their eyesight. “But their integrity is unquestioned,” writes George Will in the Washington Post, and America could use more figures like that right now.

The umpire presides over the most important part of the field—the strike zone—with absolute authority. Their job is to let the game pass through them, unobtrusively filtering out impurities. “Umpires, baseball’s judicial branch, embody what any society always needs and what America, in its current financial disarray, craves,” Will writes, “regulated striving that, by preventing ordered competition from descending into chaos, enables excellence to prevail.”

[Images (5)]

[Quotes (2)]

Manny Ramirez reacts to home plate umpire Brain Runge after striking out with the bases loaded against the Milwaukee Brewers, March 25, 2009. (AP Photo)

Umpires take a break between innings and chat with Angels shortstop Andrew Romine during a spring training baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, March 2, 2009, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo)

Home plate umpire Bruce Dreckman warns the Netherlands not to retaliate after pitcher Matt Lindstrom of the US threw behind Vince Rooi one pitch after giving up a home run. (Getty Images)

Jeff Kent of the San Francisco Giants argues strike three with the home plate umpire Angel Hernandez during game two of the World Series against the Anaheim Angels, Oct. 20, 2002. (Getty Images)

Umpires are something of a sports oddity, George Will writes, but having more in all walks of life could benefit American society at the moment. (Creative Commons)

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Umpires are islands of exemption from America's obsessive lawyering: As has been said, three strikes and you're out—the best lawyer can't help you. - George F. Will

Forests are felled to produce baseball books, about 600 a year, most of them not worth the paper they should never have been printed on. - George F. Will

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