Dunlap: Joe Torre Has A Lot Of Nerve
From what I know of him, Joe Torre is a very good man.
I don't know the guy, but I know plenty who do and all say the same thing --- he is a splendid fellow; a marvelous guy.
He's got a lot of nerve though.
A whole lot of nerve in this instance.
The manager turned Major League Baseball executive sent a memo Friday to current MLB managers and a bunch of other front office types demanding current managers tone it down. He was once one of them and now he wants them to zip their lips. Seems Torre is worried about --- and this is hard to believe as a former manager --- showing up umpires.
My goodness what's next? The Red Sox and Yankees getting along?
Torre doesn't like --- and, by extension it means the league doesn't like --- managers relying on replay to argue balls and strikes.
OK, Joe, then do something about it.
Make your umpires better or introduce automation to the game. Your league could take a step to initiate either of those prospective changes, so go ahead and do so instead of bellyaching about managers sticking up for their players with the technology that they have at their disposal.
In the memo, Torre wrote: "This highly inappropriate conduct is detrimental to the game and must stop immediately."
The memo also had a passage that read: "This conduct not only delays the game, but it also has the propensity to undermine the integrity of the umpires on the field."
Know what else undermines a lot of things, Joe? Incessantly getting balls and strikes wrong --- which is what seems to be happening with alarming regularity this baseball season.
Torre seems to have a particular issue with managers getting word from the video room or clubhouse that an umpire is a bit off and then using that communication to communicate to the umpire that he is, well, a bit off.
That appears to rankle and irritate Torre and the league most. To me, this is an offshoot of teams using an increased reliance on technology that everyone is just going to have to live with.
On top of that, how can Torre delineate a difference as to when a manager gets word from the video room that an umpire has called a pitch poorly or when a manager --- from his perch in the dugout --- simply recognizes as such with his own eyes? I'd love to have an answer to that one.
If Torre and Major League Baseball are insistent about keeping the human element in the game and continuing to allow human umpires to call balls and strikes, it is only fair that the humans they are impacting reserve a right to disagree (to a point) when they feel they have been screwed.
To me, it's just that simple.
Or, Torre and baseball can do something else --- something that seems to make the most sense here.
If the managers really are using pretty much immediate video technology made available to them to argue balls and strikes, why doesn't MLB implement much the same technology to get those balls and strikes correct in the first place.
Go to full automation with calling balls and strikes and then there would be zero reason to argue.
Guess that just makes too much sense, huh?
Instead MLB will fire off a memo defending umpires --- the group who are getting the calls wrong in the first place.
That takes a hell of a lot of nerve.
Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weekdays from 5:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.
