This topic has been in a number of forums including this one and discussions everywhere, and after talking about it on another forum I think I have an idea for MLB. This is a different idea, and would likely never happen, but it would allow MLB to police consistantly poor umpiring on the spot, when it happens, and I think this is the only way we're going to see any change from umpires aside from an all out house cleaning.
I posed this on another forum, but I've interested in what the members here think about it....keep in mind it's just an idea.
We all know and agree that human errors happen and thats part of the game, but when an umpire is consistantly bad, it's nolonger an error, it's become a quality control issue. That can be fixed with another umpire taking over.
Why couldn't the two managers of each team involved in a poorly called game, get together and decide they want a shift in umpires ? For instance, both SF and SD were getting squeezed horribly, so why not allow them to call for a change mid game? Yes it's a different thought, and would disrupt the flow inbetween innings, but far less than the alternative has and does.
If this were allowed it would be such a slap in the face reprimand to any umpire getting replaced, that instead of carrying a chip around on their shoulders, they would all likely take more pride in calling a good fair game so that it never happened to them. Something like that could be a simple and easy way for MLB to police these situations which would have a huge effect, and likely better the game.
MLB can't fine, suspend or demote umpires, which is wrong to begin with, but maybe they could work out something like this...