Seriously, you might have no umpiring experience and no baseball experience, and you might still do a better job than the umpires have done this year. Now I am generally never critical of umpires for a good reason. I am a referee. I was a soccer ref in college last fall for a few intramural leagues and during the summer I ref and umpire pretty much all sports at a summer camp (something I have been doing for 9 years now). So I understand how rough the job and how much pressure there is to make the right call. I know that mistakes happen and that refs and umps have to keep on trucking.
That being said it seems like this year they have been terrible and I think last night could have been the last straw. I understand that the ump has no way to see that play because of where the Phillie body is. However if is standing one foot to either side of where he was, he would see that Francoeur avoided the tag by at least a foot. The umpire/referee's main job is to have a clear line of sight of the play, if the line of sight doesn't exist, then they must move to a clear line of sight. It is that simple. So lets get it together major league baseball and learn how to ump because this season has just been bad, real bad.
