Hear Us Out: Do Away With Catchers And Just Let The Ball Hit The Ump

We’ve all been there: bottom of the 6th, down $80 betting on the jumbotron hat game, home team losing by 4 and the ump calls an obvious slider down the middle for strike three… a ball. Now, it would be unfair to blame the umpire for this. Instead we should blame the catcher. Umpires have gotten way too comfortable snubbing the guys throwing 100mph at their domes.

Back in the glory days of the 20s and 30s there were no catchers, umpires stood there and took it. They had a clearer view of the incoming balls, got tactile feedback, and had a lot more to lose. We lost 51 umpires in that stretch but those men died calling some very accurate games. Great years for baseball.

What do catchers even do really? Catch? Oh, they toss the ball back too. C’mon, they’re glorified golden retrievers. Worse still they deny all true baseball fans the pure joy of watching umps get drilled. Maybe the umpire could actually contribute something to the game and walk the balls back to the mound himself.

SportsRiot has put out some feelers on the proposal to umpires – mostly ambush interviews where we question their frail masculinity and heavily emphasize the impending obsolescence of their profession – and received a lukewarm response. And several “cease and desist” letters signed by judges. 

In the future we’d like to consider getting rid of batters too.