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 'Big Brother' is charting Umpires upset over baseball's directive to log pitches
Posted: Tuesday April 27, 1999 05:17 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- Major league umpires are angry over baseball's new directive asking teams to chart pitches and file a report about strike zones. "It's nonsensical when you look at it," Richie Phillips, head of the umpires' union, told the New York Post. "It's juvenile. It's just another case of Big Brother watching over us." The umpires perceive the directive as an attempt to undermine their authority, the newspaper said Tuesday. "I don't think the commissioner's office has the right to unilaterally impose an evaluation system on umpires," Pat Campbell, associate counsel for the major league umpires told The Associated Press. "They have to negotiate with us first. "They're using club personnel to do this. That seems very ineffective to me." Sandy Alderson, executive vice president of the Office of the Commissioner, sent a letter to all teams earlier this month, asking that a high-ranking front-office official chart pitches, then file a report at the end of each homestand. Alderson's memo said the directive's "purpose is to stay on top of trends and provide as much feedback as possible to the league presidents and umpire supervisors." In a Feb. 19 memo, Alderson told the umpires to raise the top of the strike zone to 2 inches above the top of the uniform pants -- still below the definition called for in the official playing rules: the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants.
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