re braves update in article apr adobe com snichols adobe com sherri nichols writes a reasonable umpire would do as he s been instructed to do this season get the batters back in the box sooner to try to cut down on the ridiculous length of games i for one am glad to see this happen and hope more umpires will do as hirschbeck did in instructing the pitcher to pitch if the batter won t get back in the box a reasonable umpire would have recognized that ron gant was disturbed with the call a reasonable umpire would have realized that there was a run game in progress with two outs in the ninth what ron gant did was try to regain his composure what a normal baseball player would have done would have been to get into a heated argument with the umpire and since you can t argue balls and strikes he would have been ejected from the game ron gant by trying to avoid such a conflict was penalized for showing some restraint incidentally a reasonable home plate umpire would not have been so resistant to seeking the appeal to the first base umpire as gant requested if the home plate umpire had appealed to first the first base umpire could have wrung up the strike and gant would not have been so upset if the call had been a ball and the catcher had requested the appeal it is likely the home plate umpire would have asked for the help finally the entire game was pretty much a mockery of the so called efforts to speed up the game the game was played very quickly it was just at hours when the stuff happened in the ninth and the only delays in the entire game had been the result of actions by the umpires other than deion having to clean garbage off the field econ duke edu fls econ duke edu fls econ duke edu fls econ duke s to my correspondents my email has been changed e l my new address is fls econ duke edu d f if mail bounces try fls raphael acpub duke edu u
