Ryan Lefebvre and I both learned something from Mike Sweeney today.
countdouglas
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Due to "illness", 3 members of the Royals' broadcast team are currently M.I.A., so former Royal Mike Sweeney has been filling in with longtime Royals' announcer Ryan Lefebvre on the radio broadcast. Lefebvre is the son of former MLB player and manager Jim Lefebvre, and was an outstanding collegiate player himself for the University of Minnesota, twice being named All Big 10 as an outfielder. Lefebvre has been the Royals' announcer since 1999, and has literally been around baseball his whole life. What Mike Sweeney said today was a revelation for Lefebvre and myself. Neither one of us had ever heard it before. I wanted to share it with you, so you can look for it yourself the next time that you're watching a game.
Mike Sweeney began his major league career as a catcher, and made it sound like "only former catchers really would know this". Lefebvre was skeptical, but as the game went on, there were multiple incidents that appeared to confirm what Sweeney had said. I'm only listening on the radio, so I'm taking their word for it that events were unfolding like they described.
Here goes... A batter checks his swing. The home plate umpire initially appears to call it a ball, no swing. The catcher asks for an appeal, and the home plate umpire points down to the other umpire with a view.
Sweeney decided to let us in on a little secret - Look and see which arm the umpire uses to point down to the base umpire on a check swing appeal. The umpire is actually signaling to the base umpire what he "thinks" the call should be, and is essentially asking the base umpire for confirmation. If the umpire points with his left hand, he's indicating that he is pretty sure it was not a swing. If he points with his right hand, he's indicating that he feels it was indeed a swing but would like a second opinion before calling it. The base umpire is free to make the call that he sees fit. He is not required to agree with the home plate umpire. It is just a way to communicate that the home plate umpire is asking for help, "this is what I think, but what did you see?".
Lefebvre said that was the first time he'd ever heard that. It was a first for me, also. There were several more check swings after that, and they made note on the radio of which arm was used, and what the appeal ruling was, and every time it matched up. A left arm appeal ended up being a no swing call, a right arm appeal ended up being a swinging strike.
Fascinating stuff. I've seen thousands upon thousands of check swing appeals, and not once did I ever notice that the umpire switches arms on the appeals and usually gets a call that corresponds with which arm he used. I will definitely be looking for it now the next time that I have a game on the TV.
Had any of you fellow baseball fans ever heard this tidbit before?
Comments
new to me
great stuff
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That makes no sense. Why does the home plate umpire have to signal what he thinks the swing/check was? He literally just made a call on it. Everyone in the ballpark knows. And the only time he'd point to a base is to check if it's a strike, so he must have already called it a ball.
Sweeney is full of it.
I thought that too while listening to the game, and so did Lefebvre, initially. Then, according to events being described on the radio, it was correlating exactly. I'm curious now to see for myself. I'm just letting you know, so you can look for it too. It may be pure B.S. Just Sweeney wanting to share an entertaining story on the radio, true or not.
They went into much longer discussion as to why the home plate umpire may have withheld his own call on the swing/check, and then why he would ask for the appeal. One thing that they both mentioned is that every umpire will tell you that the home plate umpire actually has the best view of the swing/check. He's basically just asking for help, and instead of walking down there and having a conversation, he's telling the other umpire what he thinks it was, then the other umpire can agree or disagree by making the call. The home plate umpire isn't necessarily declaring what the other umpire must signal, just what he himself saw on the swing/check. The call from the base umpire usually aligns, because that in actuality was the correct call.
I'm going to be looking for it every time that I watch now. Please share if any of you notice a strong correlation to which arm is used and what the call turns out to be. Or maybe it IS pure B.S.
One thing Sweeney mentioned early in the discussion was that the home plate umpire threw the ball back to the pitcher with his right hand, so he's assumed to be right handed, yet when he made the first appeal sign after that, it was with his left hand, and the ruling from the base umpire was that is was a check swing/no strike. (I thought...maaaybe he's ambidextrous???) They then went on to discuss the switching of the hands when making the appeals as clearly a conscious decision by the umpire, as more appeals occurred in the game. It was not made with the same hand every time.
With Quest tek reviewing home plate umpires ball / strike calls, I am sure they are most concerned with the pitch location. While the opposite batter side umpire is watching the bat.